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Does "Actions are only by intentions" serve as an excuse for committing sins with good intentions?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

It is not permissible to justify sins and violations of Islamic law on the pretext of good intentions and noble aims. Rather, whoever commits a sin must hasten to repent. Justifying a sin and not fearing its punishment on the pretext of not having bad intentions is a grave error. It is feared that such people are those about whom Al-Hasan al-Basri said: "Faith is not by wishful thinking, but what settles in the heart and is confirmed by deeds. Indeed, some people were distracted by hopes of forgiveness until they departed from this world with no good deeds, saying: 'We have good thoughts of Allah Almighty,' and they lied. Had they had good thoughts, they would have performed good deeds." Al-Ghazali mentioned that intention does not transform sins into acts of obedience.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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