Spiritual Disease and Its Cure by Imam Shams-ud-Deen Muhammad bin Abi Bakr bin Qayyim AlJ awziyyah

Sins bring down dishonour and humiliation on sinners. All dignity is in obeying Allah ~; He ~ said: (Whosoever desires honour and glory, then to Allah belong all honour and glory) 1 i.e. one should seek it honour and glory by being obedient to Allah~- One supplication of a scholar of the past was: "O Allah! Honour me with my obedience to You, but do not disgrace me with my disobedience to You." Al-Hasan Al-Basri said: "The disgrace of a sin never leaves sinners, for Allah ~ has willed that He will disgrace whoever disobeys Him." Sins corrupts one's intellect Sins corrupt the mind; for the mind has its insight, and a sin inevitably extinguishes that insight. One scholar of the past has said: "No one disobeys Allah ~ unless their mind is absent (or deficient); and this is evident, for if one's mind were present, to prevent him from committing a sin, one would be under the Protection of Allah ~ ' Who is fully aware of all his conditions." The accumulation of sins leads to the sealing of the heart When a person indulges incessantly in sin and wrongdoings, his/her heart becomes sealed up, and he/she would be careless and thoughtless, as reported by a scholar in his interpretation of the Verse: (Nay, but on their hearts is the Raan ( covering of sins and evil deeds) which they used to earn) , he said: "It is one sin after another sin." 2

Al-Hasan Al-Basri said: "It is one sin on top of another sin, until the heart becomes blind." Others have said: "When the wrongdoings and misdeeds of sinners become vastly increased, they will surround their hearts." The reality of this ailment is that the heart becomes rusty because of a sin; so when sins increase, the rust increases until it surrounds all the heart, until it dominates it, becoming a seal over it.