THE GRAVEST SIN:
To contradict the purpose of one’s creation is then the greatest evil that a human being can commit. Abdullaah reported that he asked God’s Messenger (peace be upon him) which sin is the gravest in God’s sight and he replied,
“To ascribe a partner to God, even though He created you.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)
Worshipping others besides God, called shirk in Arabic, is the only unforgivable sin. If a human being dies without repenting from his or her sins, God may forgive all their sins, except shirk. In this regard, God stated:
“Surely God will not forgive the worship of others besides Him, but He forgives sins less than that to whomever He wishes.” (Quran 4:116)
Worshipping others besides God essentially involves giving the attributes of the Creator to His creation. Each sect or religion does this in their own particular way. A small but very vocal group of people down through the ages have actually denied God’s existence. To justify their rejection of the Creator, they were obliged to make the illogical claim that this world has no beginning. Their claim is illogical because all of the observable parts of the world have beginnings in time, therefore it is only reasonable to expect the sum of the parts to also have a beginning. It is also only logical to assume that whatever caused the world to come into existence could not have been a part of the world nor could it have a beginning like the world. The atheist assertion that the world has no beginning means that the matter which makes up the universe is eternal. This is a statement of shirk, whereby God’s attribute of being without beginning is given to His creation. The numbers of genuine atheists have historically always been quite small because, in spite of their claims, they instinctively know that God does exist. That is, in spite of decades of communist indoctrination, the majority of Russians and Chinese continued to believe in God. The Almighty Creator pointed out this phenomenon, saying:
“And they denied [the signs] wrongfully and arrogantly, though within themselves they were convinced of them.” (Quran 27:14)
To atheists and materialists, life has no purpose beyond the fulfillment of their desires. Consequently, their desires also become the god which they obey and submit to instead of the One True God. In the Quran, God said:
“Have you seen the one who takes his desires as his god?” (Quran 25:43, 45:23)