Answering a Jew’s Question About Collective Punishment
By Bassam ZawadiOnce, I was in discussion with an orthodox Jew considering Islam, and he asked me how to reconcile the idea that “no one bears the burden of another” with the fact that God does at times collectively punish towns and cities along with the innocent and guilty alike. I answered as follows:
“People could suffer because of other people’s sins, not that they atone for other people’s sins. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) explained that people experience suffering for different reasons, and each individual could be accounted for, but no innocent people have the moral guilt of others transferred onto them to shoulder as burdens.
That is the primary difference. The verse in question you are alluding to refers to the impossibility of moral guilt being transferred from the culpable to the innocent or the innocent sharing in that guilt. In other words, Kevin will not be asked about why James cheated on his wife.
However, it is possible that Kevin lives in a town filled with adulterers, and God punishes that town along with Kevin in it, despite Kevin being innocent. So here we see that Kevin got affected by the sins of others; however, he was not punished because of their sins being on his account.
In Islam, there are many reasons why a person might be punished. For instance, Allah may have punished Kevin along with the adulterers in the town for other crimes he committed. Or Allah wanted Kevin to be cleansed of his previous sins and so punished him in this life instead of the next life (assuming Kevin dealt with the trial patiently). Or it is possible that Allah simply wanted to test Kevin’s perseverance through such trials, and Kevin’s reaction would determine whether he would have good or bad deeds on his scale. Another possibility is that Allah is punishing Kevin for failing to promote the good and forbid the vice when he had many opportunities to do so.
I hope I made the distinction clear for you.
There is a difference between suffering as collateral damage due to the consequences of others’ sins versus being punished specifically for a specific crime that you did not commit (which is what the Qur’anic verse is denying). Islam does not have the collective culpability mentality which many Christians have with their views of original sin.”
Answering a Jew’s Question About Collective Punishment
Once, I was in discussion with an orthodox Jew considering Islam, and he asked me how to reconcile the idea that “no one bears the burden of another” with the fact that God does at times collectively punish towns and cities along with the innocent and guilty alike. I answered as follows:
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