کلمہِ توحید کی فضیلت

It is narrated from Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-’As (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: “On the Day of Resurrection, before all creation, Allah will bring forth a man of my Ummah and will lay before him ninety-nine registers (of sins), each register stretching as far as the eye can see. Then Allah will ask this man, ‘Do you deny any of these deeds? Have my recording scribes (who prepare the record of deeds) wronged you?’ The man will say, ‘No, O Allah.’ Then Allah will say, ‘Wait! We have one good deed of yours as well, and today no injustice will be done to you.’ So a small slip of paper will be brought on which is written, ‘I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger.’ Allah will say, ‘Go to the place where deeds are weighed.’ The servant will say, ‘O Allah, what weight can this tiny slip of paper have against my heap of sins?’ Allah will say, ‘Servant, today you will not be wronged’ (that is, every deed, small or great, will surely be reckoned).” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The heap of sins will be placed on one pan of the scale and the slip of paper on the other; the registers of sins will prove light and the slip of paper will become heavy. (Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:) Nothing can be heavier than the name of Allah.”

In the Hereafter, a person’s salvation will depend on two things: faith (iman) and righteous deeds. But of the two, faith carries greater importance, and the foundation of that faith rests upon the Word of Tawheed (the declaration of Allah’s Oneness). On the Day of Resurrection, if the belief in Tawheed is present, shortcomings and lapses in deeds may be forgiven; but if the belief is corrupted (by disbelief or polytheism, or by mixing shirk into Tawheed), then even righteous deeds equal to the vastness of the heavens and the earth will be of no avail, as Allah Himself has said: “Those who disbelieve and die as disbelievers, if any one of them were to offer as ransom (to save himself from punishment) an earth-full of gold, it would not be accepted from him. For such people there is a painful punishment, and they will have no helpers.” (Aal-e-Imran: 91)

Whereas, if a person — driven by the cravings of his self, the temptations of the devils, and absorption in worldly affairs, and heedless of the true purpose of his life — keeps committing sin after sin, yet does not associate anyone as a partner with the Being of Allah, then about such a person Allah has said: “Indeed, Allah does not forgive that a partner be associated with Him, but He forgives anything less than that for whom He wills.” (An-Nisa: 116)

Here one important point must be well understood: the guarantee of entering Paradise through faith in the One Allah by no means implies that a person may do whatever deeds he pleases and go straight to Paradise without any punishment for his sins. Rather, the meaning of the hadith is that one who holds the belief in Tawheed will certainly enter Paradise — either after undergoing the punishment for his sins, or after Allah forgives his sins. And just as the eternal abode of the polytheist is Hell, so the eternal abode of the one who holds the belief in Tawheed will be Paradise.