Will you explain the rule “no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another”?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Christians accept that all human beings are born as sinners because Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. It is called the “original sin”. The baptism ceremony they perform for babies in the church aims to cleanse them from that sin. According to them, the crucifixion of Jesus was a special grace of God to save people from that sin.

In contrast, the Quran introduces the “principle of the individuality of guilt” and declares in five different verses:

وَلاَتَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ اُخْرٰىۜ ”No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another.” (al-An’am 6/164; al-Isra 17/15; Fatir 35/18; az-Zumar 39/7; an-Najm 53/38.)

In fact, that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree does not mean that we are sinners; it indicates that we are beings with the potential for sin. Their sin is theirs and our sin is ours. As the saying goes, “Let every man skin his own skunk.”

Some people went to Aisha (ra) and told her that Abu Hurayra (ra) narrated a hadith that says, “The illegitimate child is the worst of the three evil ones.” Aisha said:

“May Allah mercy Abu Hurayra! Does he not know this verse: ‘No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another’? The Prophet’s statement was about a certain hypocrite who spoke ill of him. The Prophet asked who he was, and they said, ‘He is an illegitimate child.’ Then, the Prophet (pbuh) said so.” (see Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, II, 311; VI,109)

The phrase “the three evil ones” in the hadith refers to the child who is the product of fornication and his mother and father, who were conducive to his birth. Someone who only knows the part of the hadith that says, “The illegitimate child is the worst of the three evil ones” would consider the child born through fornication to be an evil being. However, Aisha (ra) clarified the issue by pointing out that it referred to a specific person.

The Prophet (pbuh) said: “Every child is born with a true faith of Islam and his parents convert him to Judaism or Christianity or Magianism.” (Bukhari, Janaiz 92; Abu Dawud, Sunnah 17; Tirmidhi, Qadar 5)

It is noteworthy that even the illegitimate child is considered innocent in Islam. The following is reported from the Prophet (pbuh): “The illegitimate child has nothing to do with the sins of his parents.” (Munawi, Muhammad Abdurrauf, Faydul-Qadir, Darul-Kutubil-Ilmiyya, Beirut, V, 372)

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