Question: If a child is born blind, lame, deaf, dumb, mentally retarded, or disabled on account of its parents’ fault, ebriety, or any disorder, what is its sin then?
ANSWER
True Muslims are people who have no desire than to please Allahu ta’âlâ. They work to obtain sustenance in order to obey the commandment of Allahu ta’âlâ. While they are working, they do not cease to perform the acts of worship enjoined on them and do not commit prohibited things. They follow the orders of Islam while they are earning and spending. Poverty will be just as useful as being rich for these types of people. But those who are not so are not satisfied with the decree and destiny of Allahu ta’âlâ. When they are poor, they object to Him by saying that He has given them so little. When they are rich, they are not content and ask for more. They spend their earnings on forbidden things. Their poverty and riches will be a means of disaster for them in both this world and the next.

The advantages and disadvantages of blindness, lameness or other disorders vary from person to person. Some people, being content with the decree of Allahu ta’âlâ, attain endless blessings of Paradise thanks to them while those who are not content with them may be deserving of punishment in the eternal Hell.

No one can know whether being disabled is to the benefit or to the detriment of him or her.

Some people, for example, want to have a state-of-the-art car with insistence. But when they purchase it, maybe they will fall into a stream along with their households as a result of an accident. Therefore, we should not insist obsessively that something should happen; instead, we should want it to have a useful, beneficial outcome.

The child does not have a sin in being born disabled. If its parents have a fault in it, the sin lies with them. If blind people had not been blind, they might chase after evil things and so ruin their lives in this and the next worlds. On the other hand, some other blind people are not content with the Creator’s decree and rebel against Him. So they incur eternal disaster.

A sightless Muslim will enter Paradise. The purport of two ahâdîth is as follows:
(Allahu ta’âlâ does not put a Muslim who is blind in two eyes into Hell.) [Tabarânî]

(If a sightless person endures it patiently, Allah grants him Paradise.) [Bukhârî]

Not only blind people but also those with other impairments, if they put up with them patiently, will go to Paradise without experiencing any suffering when dying, when in grave, and when at the place of Mahshar. There are not impairments in Paradise. The abode of disbelievers, whether they are healthy or disabled, will be Hell forever.