“Whoever starts (or sets an example of) something evil in Islam, will bear the burden for that, and a burden equal to that of everyone who does it after him, without that detracting from their burden in the slightest.” [Muslim]
There’s a popular rhetorical question, ‘if you encourage your friend to do bad deeds, what’s the difference between you and shaytan’?
Going by this question, most of us are mini-satans, we sometimes unconsciously encourage our friends to do bad deeds, sometimes not knowing ourselves that the deeds are bad and sometimes knowing that they are. In most cases, we ourselves are guilty of that sin. Its one thing to sin and another to encourage others to. By doing so, we are multiplying sins for ourselves, we may be reciting Qur’an & getting sins because that friend of ours is listening to the latest song that we sent to him/her. And if sent it to 10 friends, that’s 10 sins every time they listen to it. Let’s beware of this, Allah(SWT) is merciful that He allows only one bad deed to be recorded for us when we sin & ten good deeds when we do one good deed, so let’s not multiply our sins by encouraging others to do it, and let’s not follow satan’s footsteps!
Hypocrisy is when I know that a deed is haram & because of that I refrain from it, but I don’t forbid my friends from doing it but even encourage them.
In my opinion, it is an even bigger sin than encouraging others. Let me share a personal story with you;
I’ve never had a ‘boyfriend’ Alhamdulillah, maybe a few close male friends, but I’ve never gone the whole nine yards because I know that in islam it’s haram to have a ‘boyfriend’ or a ‘girlfriend’. But I had friends who were guilty of this & I didn’t forbid them (I wanted to get rid of the male friends first so that I wouldn’t be amongst those who didn’t practice what they preached). The disturbing thing was that I would encourage them in their sin, I would give a listening ear to their ‘bf’ talks, tell them what a fresh guy their boyfriend was & how lucky they were , wa iyazubillah! It was then that I realised what a terrible thing I was doing & how hypocritical I was! Till this day, I still pray that Allah(SWT) would forgive my hypocrisy. Alhamdulillah, I’ve stopped doing that & bit by bit, I’m forbidding them from doing it.
Another common example in our times, we see girls who don’t upload their pictures on bbm, twitter, facebook,etc because they know the the islamic ruling on it, but when their friends upload them, they’re the first to comment on them, telling them ‘beautiful avatar’, ‘you look gorgeous’,etc . Some even use them as their own profile pictures while they themselves don’t put up their pictures.
But the real question is, why do we encourage them? Is it because we want them to like us? Or we’re afraid to lose them? Or because we don’t want them to hint our disapproval of that action? By Allah, none of these reasons are worth it, as a hypocrite, we get two sins; one for not forbidding the evil & another for encouraging it.
Allah(SWT) says in the glorious Qur’an
‘Verily,the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the Fire; no helper will you find for them’ (Q4:145) Subhanallah! Wallah let’s beware, on that day those friends of ours will turn against us and lament us for not correcting them and encouraging them. Nothing & no one is worth our jannah!
Please let’s stop encouraging others in sinning,let’s make istighfar for our own & start commanding the good & forbidding the evil.(‘Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining the goodness and forbidding the bad. And it is they that are successful’ Q3:104 )
And most of all, let’s not become Satan or a Hypocrite!!
Sincerely,a rehabilitated victim
A slave of Allah 