Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
In Islam, not hating sin itself does not automatically make a person a disbeliever. However, true faith requires loving Allah and His Messenger and disliking disobedience. If a person accepts, approves, or justifies sin, that may contradict faith.
Responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Loving Allah and Rejecting Sin as a Core of Faith
As believers, we must nurture our love for Allah and His beloved things while rejecting what He forbids. This connection should guide our hearts and actions in every area of life.
Allah says in the Quran:
{Know that the Messenger of God is among you. If he were to obey you in many matters, you would face difficulty. But God has made faith beloved to you and beautified it in your hearts. And He has made disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience hateful to you. These are the rightly guided.} (Al-Hujurat 49:7)
This verse shows that a true believer loves Allah and His Messenger. We should align our preferences with Allah’s and reject all sin—big or small, public or private—in our words, actions, and thoughts.
Three Key Qualities of a True Believer
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) explained faith with these words:
“There are three qualities that whoever possesses them will taste the sweetness of faith: to love Allah and His Messenger more than anything else; to love a person only for the sake of Allah; and to hate returning to disbelief as much as he hates being thrown into the Fire.”
This Hadith outlines three key qualities every believer should strive for:
- Loving Allah and His Messenger Above All Else: A true believer places love for Allah and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) above all. This love should motivate our actions, leading us to follow their teachings over worldly desires. We must commit to living by Islamic principles and seeking Allah’s pleasure in all we do.
- Loving Others for Allah’s Sake: Our love for others should come from our love for Allah, not personal gain. This love creates unity and strengthens the Muslim community. It encourages believers to support each other for the greater good of their faith and well-being.
- Abhorring Disbelief and Sin: Believers must develop a strong dislike for anything that leads to disbelief or distances them from Allah. We should reject all sin and work to purify our hearts. Just as we fear being cast into the Fire, we should fear abandoning our faith or acting in ways that displease Allah.
By embracing these qualities, believers can taste the genuine sweetness of faith (Iman). Remember, we cannot earn Allah’s pleasure by tolerating or promoting sin in any form—through our words, actions, or thoughts. Genuine devotion to Allah means sincerely loving what He loves and detesting what He forbids.
Given all this, consider: Am I truly living my belief in Allah if I persist in sin? As the poet wisely noted, “You consistently disobey Allah while claiming to love Him; this is indeed a strange logic!”
Read the fatwas below for additional insight:
- How to Treat a Muslim Committing Major Sins
- Do Death Agonies Reduce One’s Sins?
- Committed Many Sins: Can I Hope For Repentance?
- Repentance for Major and Minor Sins: The Same?
- Is It Haram to Expose Past Sins to Your Husband?
Almighty Allah knows best.