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THE QUR'ANIC DOCTRINE OF SIN
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wickedness; it is used very frequently to express merely injury or harm done by one man to another, as in the following passage, 'So God
preserved him from the evils which they had planned.' 1 It may also express the evils which God brings on man to try him. Thus we read, 'And we have divided them upon
the earth as peoples, some of them are upright and some are otherwise, and by good things and by evil things (as-sayyiat) have we proved them.' 2
The word may also be used to express the punishment wherewith God chastises men, whether in this world with misfortune and calamity, or hereafter with torment and eternal
damnation. Thus we find the following, 'When we cause men to taste mercy, they rejoice in it; but if evil befalleth them, for that which their hands have aforetime wrought,
behold they despair.' 3 On the other hand, the word is employed to express punishment hereafter, and the evils 'they have wrought shall rise up into their view.'
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The fundamental idea underlying the word appears to be that of misfortune or calamity, which befalls one in the course of nature through famine, drought or plague, or from the
action of personal enemies, or as the direct act of God with the object of testing or punishing; and with this idea there is linked the thought that the hopes and expectations of
man have been disappointed. He looked for and expected good, and behold evil.
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THE QUR'AN DOCTRINE OF SIN |
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The use of the verb saa' is similar. It expresses the evil and foolishness of men in doing that which brings upon them not good but evil, 1 or the folly of their
judgment and reasoning when they come to a wrong conclusion as in the phrase, 'How ill do they judge!' 2 The word sayyiat easily and naturally passes over to
describe moral evil, which is the cause of calamity, misfortune, or punishment. One can see, as it were, the transition in such phrases as 'And their own ill deeds shall be clearly
perceived by them.' 3 The original sense of the word appears still to linger in such expressions as, 'Whoso doeth evil (literally earneth evil) and is encompassed
by his iniquity, they shall be the companions of hell fire';4 or, 'as for those who have wrought out evil (literally earn evil) their recompense shall be the
reward of evil of like degree.' 5
The change in sense has become complete when instead of kasaba (to gain, or earn) 'amila (to do) is employed, as in the following, 'Whoever worketh evil shall only be
rewarded in equal proportion to the same'; 6 or, 'But no repentance shall be accepted from those who do evil until the time when death present itself unto one of them';
7 or again, 'But unto them who do evil, and afterwards repent . . . . ' 8
Even to the end, however, there seems to remain a feeling that while what is described by the word sayyiat may be morally wrong, the word speaks of wrong wherein a man
injures himself, and acts contrary to his
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