What are the sins for which their perpetrators are punished in their graves?
The causes of grave torment in the Quran and Sunnah are many, including:
- Polytheism and disbelief in Allah: As confirmed by the verse: (The Fire, they are exposed to it morning and evening) Ghafir/46, and (This Day you will be recompensed with the punishment of disgrace for what you used used to say against Allah other than the truth) Al-An'am/93.
- Hypocrisy: For they are the inhabitants of the lowest depths of the Fire, as Allah says: (We will punish them twice then they will be returned to a great torment) At-Tawbah/101.
- Altering Allah's law by making unlawful things lawful and lawful things unlawful: Like Amr ibn Luhayy, who will drag his intestines in the Fire because he was the first to release "sa'ibah" animals (animals dedicated to idols).
- Not purifying oneself from urine and slandering: As the Prophet (peace be upon him) said about those tormented in the grave: (As for one of them, he did not take precautions against urine, and as for the other, he used to walk with slander.)
- Backbiting: Al-Bukhari alluded to it in his chapter on grave torment.
- Lying: As mentioned in the Hadith about the man whose jaw, nostril, and eye are torn apart, because (he leaves his house in the morning and tells a lie that reaches the horizons).
- Abandoning the Quran after learning it and sleeping through prescribed prayers: Concerning the one whose head is crushed in the grave: (He is a man whom Allah taught the Quran, but he slept through it at night and did not act upon it during the day) and in another narration: (He takes the Quran and rejects it and sleeps through the prescribed prayer).
- Consuming usury (riba): Concerning the one who swims in the river and is fed stones: (He is the one who consumes usury).
- Adultery (zina): Concerning the naked men and women in a structure like an oven: (They are the adulterers and adulteresses).
- Enjoining people to righteousness while forgetting oneself: Concerning the preachers whose lips are clipped with fiery scissors: (They enjoin people to righteousness and forget themselves).
- Breaking the fast in Ramadan without a valid excuse: Concerning the people suspended by their Achilles tendons, with their jaws torn open and blood flowing: (They are those who break their fast before their fast is permissible).
- Embezzling from war spoils (ghulul): The piece of cloth taken from the spoils of war burns its owner with fire.
- Dragging one's garment out of arrogance: Concerning the man who was swallowed by the earth and will continue to sink until the Day of Resurrection.
- Stealing from pilgrims: Concerning the man with the curved staff who used to steal from pilgrims with his staff.
- Confining, torturing, and showing no mercy to animals: Concerning the woman who tied a cat and did not feed it.
- Debt: The brother of Sa'd ibn al-Atwal was held back by his debt until it was paid on his behalf.
Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026
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