Stop harming yourself [10:23]

Something that we hear often these days goes like this: how does it affect God if I don’t pray [or fast or do cheat or lie or sleep around]? Is God so petty that he will punish me for these inconsequential things? Religion feels so restrictive. Why does it matter so much if I do this or that? What difference could it possibly make to God?

The short answer to this question is, you are right. It makes no difference to God. Allah is not diminished by our actions. He is completely independent and self-sufficient. Our obedience does not increase Him. Our disobedience does not decrease Him.

Our reflection for today explores how this is actually the wrong question to ask. Verse 23 of Chapter 10 describes people caught in a storm at sea. In fear and desperation, they call upon Allah sincerely. They promise gratitude and obedience if only they are saved. But when the storm passes and safety returns, they revert to their old ways, transgressing, rebelling and exceeding limits.

Firstly, this shows such a relatable part of human psychology, right? The storm-at-sea imagery is so powerful. When we are in crisis, clarity returns. We remember our dependence. We feel our vulnerability. But once safety returns, complacency creeps back in. Once He comes to our rescue, the storm passes …. we are back to our own selves. 

In the part we are discussing today, Allah [swt] is speaking directly to all of mankind:

فَلَمَّا أَنجَاهُمْ إِذَا هُمْ يَبْغُونَ فِي الأَرْضِ بِغَيْرِ الْحَقِّ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّمَا بَغْيُكُمْ عَلَى أَنفُسِكُم مَّتَاعَ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا ثُمَّ إِلَينَا مَرْجِعُكُمْ فَنُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

[10:23] But when He delivers them, lo! they are unjustly rebellious in the earth. O men! your rebellion is against your own souls-- provision (only) of this world's life-- then to Us shall be your return, so We will inform you of what you did.

This verse reframes sin entirely. We often think of sin as rule-breaking, disobedience, or violation of divine authority. But 10:23 shifts the lens. Sin is not primarily breaking rules. It is self-harm. “Your violations are only to your own detriment”, the verse says. 

There are at least two subtle aspects to this self-harm. One is the direct impact on my soul and the second is the indirect impact on me when I act irresponsibly. 

Let’s talk about the direct impact on my soul first.

When someone lies, they fracture trust not only externally, but internally [remember we have been talking about going against our innate nature which is programmed towards goodness]. When someone indulges in envy, they poison their own peace. When someone engages in zina, they destabilize attachment systems and weaken relational trust. When someone numbs themselves through addiction, they weaken their own agency and capacity for disciplined choice.

In these ways, sin erodes self-respect and destabilizes emotional regulation. It weakens relationship stability. The rebellion is against ourselves. It is misalignment with our fitrah. It is misuse of our agency. It is betrayal of our own long-term flourishing. It is self-harm of the utmost degree. 

The Imams deepen this understanding beautifully. In Duʿāʾ al-Tawbah from Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, Imam al-Sajjad (as) speaks of:

“…sins whose pleasures have passed and gone, but whose consequences remain…”

This line captures the asymmetry of sin with extraordinary precision. Pleasure is short. Intense. Often dopamine-driven. Emotional and immediate. But so so fleeting. Consequences however linger. When we overindulge in food one evening, it feels good in the moment. But the bloating, heartburn and reflux lasts longer than the taste in the mouth. Does that make sense? 

Anything that matters takes time. Despite what life hacks IG sells us, dignity builds slowly. Integrity strengthens gradually. Trust develops over time. Inner stability grows through repeated alignment.

Every moral choice is, in a sense, a trade: a spike of dopamine now, or the construction of a character that endures.

Next let us explore the idea of self-harm from another perspective. 

The word the Quran uses for rebellion here is baghy. Most tafāsīr explain it as oppression. Tafsīr Majmaʿ al-Bayān says it refers to oppressing others out of greed and over-attachment to this transient world, forgetting worship and obedience that draw one closer to Allah. ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabā’ī explains that the root meaning of baghy is “to seek.” It often comes to mean oppression because it involves seeking what belongs to others and trampling over their rights.

Across the Qur’an, baghy carries shades of meaning: aggression, jealousy, revolt, injustice, exceeding proper limits. It describes those who transgress boundaries whether personal, social, or spiritual. In Islamic jurisprudence, it even refers to rebellion against a just leader. In every usage, the common thread is this: crossing limits that were set for balance and justice.

And Allah says: when you cross those limits, you harm yourselves.

Think about this: even when you think you are doing harm to someone else, you are harming yourself. Now we might think this just means that we get a sin. But it is actually deeper than that. 

The thing is, we are not isolated individuals floating independently. We exist within a system created by Allah. This system of cause and effect is based on justice and balance. When boundaries are violated whether moral, relational, economic, or environmental, the system destabilizes. The impact reverberates throughout the system like a ripple effect. The oppressor is part of that same system. When it malfunctions, they too are affected.

Have we heard that poverty impacts all of us? That we cannot behave with wanton disregard for the climate and not suffer its impact? That none of us are free till all of us are free? The butterfly effect? All of these are examples of how interconnected we all are. I do not act in isolation. It is not me, myself and I. What I do is not only my business. 

Look at the world today. Human greed has disregarded the rights of others, the rights of the earth, the rights of future generations. The result is global instability: environmental crisis, economic inequality, mental health epidemics, social fragmentation. We are all reeling from the impact. Transgression does not remain contained. It reverberates. The chaos unleashed by human excess returns to the human being. Even those that were not the direct cause of these phenomena. 

[Food for thought: does the injunction towards promoting good and forbidding evil make sense now?]

This verse is reminding us that when we upset the balance that Allah [swt] has set, we are harming ourselves individually and collectively because truly, we are all in this together. 

Reflection for today:

Where might I be rebelling against my own well-being?