How to Prevent Collapse of Society
“Righteousness” and “corruption” are two opposite concepts and the divine tradition is that the effect of righteousness can be evident in the righteous and that of corruption in the corrupt.
But what is the meaning of sin and corruption and what is their difference?
Sin is the act of an individual that is considered as disobedience to God's commands, in other words, it means doing something that God has forbidden or abandoning something that God has ordered to do. And corruption is a situation that disrupts the normal path of society, destroys freedom, security, justice, and public peace and distorts the moderation of society.
Accordingly, sin is the result of individuals’ acts while corruption relates to society; the Quran has drawn a direct relationship between the two. “Corruption has appeared on land and sea with what the hands of the people earned. Therefore, they taste some of what they did in order that they return.” (Surah Ar-Rum, verse 41)
This verse demonstrates the extensive relation between sin and corruption. Sin is like an unhealthy food that exerts negative effects on the body, leading to a series of natural reactions. For instance, lying eliminates trust, betrayal distorts social relations, and oppression always leads to another oppression.
According to Islamic narrations, many sins bear effects that are hidden to us. For instance, it has been mentioned in narrations that cutting relations with the family will make life shorter and taking over the properties of an orphan will make the heart grow dark.
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has been quoted as saying in a hadith that “After me, when adultery becomes evident among people, unexpected deaths will increase; when they engage in fraud (with regard to weighing and measuring), God will send draughts; when they refrain from paying Zakat, they will help each other on increasing oppression and enmity; when they break a pact, God will dominate enemies on them; and when they abandon enjoining the good and forbidding wrong and do not follow my Ahlul Bayt, God will dominate bad people on them.”
This is a divine tradition that if people do not engage in revising themselves, the world will naturally do that with divine laws, eliminating the wrong. Allameh Tabatabai cites Quran and notes that the wrong will not survive in the world and the world is on the path to improvement. “God does not guide the unjust people.” (Surah Al-Ma'idah, verse 51)
