The Accusation: “According to the Shaykh, There Is No Disbelief Except Through Belief”

Whoever listens to the Shaykh’s words in some recordings and his answers to certain questions will find that he says things that suggest restricting disbelief (kufr) to belief. But it appears from the context of his words that he intended two things by this:

To set down a principle that prevents young people from rushing to declare others disbelievers.

That he meant there is a necessary interconnection (talāzum) between the disbelief of belief and the disbelief of action.

But may it be said that the Shaykh does not declare anyone a disbeliever on account of action? The reality is the opposite: he declares disbelief on account of speech and deed, just as he does on account of belief. Here are some proofs from his words.

The Shaykh — may Allah have mercy on him — says: “Among actions there are actions by which the doer may disbelieve with a disbelief of belief… such that this deed of his takes the place of his declaring his disbelief with his tongue — like one who tramples upon the Muṣḥaf, knowing what it is and intending to do so.” End quote.¹

In the Shaykh’s words there is what shows that he has a particular terminology in naming disbelief, even though he does not stipulate belief; and since he is a scholar — indeed an imam — his words must be understood according to his intent and his terminology. This matter — that a scholar has a particular terminology which some researchers did not take into account — has made attacking scholars an easy pursuit, as happened with some in the case of Imam Ibn Qudāmah, whom they accused of tafwīḍ. We have explained Ibn Qudāmah’s terminology, and whoever knows it will be certain that he is free of tafwīḍ.

Shaykh al-Albānī stated clearly in his treatise Ḥukm Tārik al-Ṣalāh that abandoning prayer is major disbelief if a person persists in abandoning it and refuses to perform it even when the ruler threatens him with death. He said: “It is upon the like of this person — who persists in abandoning prayer and refusing it even when the ruler threatens him with death — that all the evidences of the group who declare the abandoner of prayer a disbeliever must be applied.” End quote.² So he declares the abandoner of prayer a disbeliever merely for persisting in abandoning it.

According to the people of knowledge, the place of irjāʾ in this issue is the saying of those jurists who said: “If he persists in abandoning prayer while being called to it and seeing the gleam of the sword, until he is killed, he is killed as a legal punishment (ḥadd), not as a disbeliever!”

Shaykh al-Islām said: “This point deserves reflection. Whoever knows the connection between the outward and the inward, the doubt in this chapter disappears from him, and he knows that whoever among the jurists said that, if he affirms the obligation but refuses to act, he is not killed, or is killed while remaining a Muslim, has been affected by the same doubt that affected the Murjiʾah and the Jahmiyyah.”

Al-Albānī — may Allah have mercy on him — gave a fatwa that a man’s saying “I am a Jew” is disbelief that expels from the religion.³ Here he declares disbelief on account of action (or speech) without stipulating an explicit declaration of belief.

The Shaykh — may Allah have mercy on him — was asked about one who mocks Allah, His verses or His Messenger: does he become a disbeliever? He said plainly, word for word: “That is the disbelief that has shown its horn.”⁴ He did not say that we ask about his belief, as some claim — we ask Allah for well-being. Indeed, some people of desires went so far as to attribute to the Shaykh that he says: “Whoever prostrates to an idol, or even to a shoe, we do not declare him a disbeliever until he declares his belief!!” Their testimony will be recorded, and they will be questioned.

In a scholarly session, a fatwa of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm — may Allah have mercy on him — on declaring the reviler and the mocker disbelievers was read to him, and he approved it and made clear that he holds this as his religion before Allah.⁵ In another session he established that disbelief occurs through deed, speech and belief.⁶

Nevertheless, we say that the Shaykh has a particular terminology by which he intended — as mentioned before — to address a reality that he lived and witnessed. He calls disbelief in actions “disbelief of belief” because of the interconnection between them. This is a subtle point that few people mention, whether among his defenders or his attackers.

As for the matter of interconnection, the Shaykh makes speech or action an indication of what has settled in the heart, not the reverse; that is, he does not require knowledge of the person’s belief in order to declare him a disbeliever on account of speech or action. There is no disagreement among the people of knowledge about the existence of this interconnection; rather, it is one of the principles that distinguishes Ahl al-Sunnah from the Murjiʾah and the Khawārij. But this does not mean that we are required to dig into people’s hearts and beliefs, because judgement is only according to the outward. If that speech or deed is disbelief by evidence from the Book, the Sunnah or consensus, we do not hesitate to judge the specific individual who commits it to be a disbeliever — when the conditions are met and the impediments are absent — without investigating his belief, even if he says, “I did not believe it.” The senior scholars, earlier and later, have stated this explicitly.

This should not be understood as encouraging people to declare others disbelievers. Rather, this judgement must come from someone qualified for it, and that is only for well-grounded people of knowledge, because of the danger of boldly declaring a specific individual a disbeliever without proper criteria.

There is a lengthy study of this issue which we included in the book Al-Murjiʾah wa al-Sayf. Shaykh al-Islām said in Al-Ṣārim al-Maslūl: “And Allah the Exalted said concerning those who mocked: “Make no excuse; you have disbelieved after your belief” [al-Tawbah 9:66]. So He made clear that they were disbelievers on account of speech, even though they did not believe it to be true. This is a broad chapter, and the understanding of it is what preceded: that affirmation in the heart prevents the will to utter words, or to do an act, that contains contempt and disdain, just as it necessitates love and veneration, and requires their existence… So speech and action that contain disdain and contempt necessarily entail the absence of beneficial affirmation and the absence of submission and surrender, and for that reason it is disbelief.” Here Shaykh al-Islām affirms the interconnection between deed or speech and belief.

And Shaykh al-Albānī,⁷ in his answer to the following question: “What is the ruling on circumambulating graves?”

said: “Circumambulating graves is shirk; there is no doubt or uncertainty about that… If someone circumambulates a grave, this means that he has transferred an act of worship that belongs to Allah alone, without partner, to that buried person… So whoever directs one of the acts of worship by which Allah the Mighty and Majestic has made His servants worship Him to other than Him has taken that one as a god alongside Him.”

A questioner said: “Do we ask the one circumambulating whether he believes (in it) or not, or is it outwardly shirk?”

He — may Allah have mercy on him — said: “This question arises when it is intended to carry out the legal punishment on him, because by this act he apostatises. If there is someone who carries out the punishment — that is, execution — on the apostate, then this person is brought and asked to repent. He is not asked, ‘Do you believe or not?’, because his action is proof of his belief. He is only asked to repent after the proof has been established against him: that this circumambulation is only for the House of Allah, an act of worship and submission to Allah, like prostration, no difference. If a person prostrated to a shaykh of his or a ruler of his, he is not asked, ‘Why do you prostrate, and do you believe that this one deserves veneration?’, because his deed indicates veneration; rather, he is asked to repent, and if he repents (well and good), otherwise he is executed.”

And after this clarification, some still attribute to the Shaykh what he did not say. Allah is the One whose help is sought.

It must be noted that most of the words of Shaykh al-Albānī — may Allah have mercy on him — focus on the case of the specific individual; he does not discuss the matter in general terms, especially since his words were not in the context of authorship and laying down principles, as we indicated earlier. He would often say, “We want to deal with the reality.” This is a method the Shaykh adopted, which we came to know from him through experience, and it must be borne in mind so that his words are understood correctly.

Whoever studies the words of the earlier imams will find that, in refuting the people of innovation, they were compelled to use expressions whose outward sense contradicts what they believe. The case of al-Dārimī in his refutation of al-Marīsī is not far from us: he has expressions that make the listener certain that the man is an anthropomorphist (mushabbih), so much so that one of our shaykhs, when shown some of those expressions, objected to them in the strongest terms, then said: “When I came across them in their context, I realised that he was compelled to use them in the course of refutation.” Likewise what Shaykh al-Islām mentioned in the course of refuting the Rāfiḍah: whoever hears it in isolation would think the man is a Nāṣibī — and we seek refuge in Allah — but on reviewing the passage where he mentioned it, we find he was compelled to it in the course of refutation, because he wanted to show that there is no accusation they could level against any of the Companions except that the Khawārij and the Nawāṣib could level a similar one against ʿAlī — may Allah be pleased with him — and this silences the Rāfiḍah.

But those who attack the Shaykh were driven by their hatred of his call to disregard the principle of excusing and of charitable interpretation in the case of the people of knowledge. If one of these opponents of the Shaykh says that the one who mocks Allah, His verses or His Messenger becomes a disbeliever by the mere statement, even if he was joking, while the one who interprets away the attribute of istiwāʾ, for example, does not become a disbeliever merely by that until the proof is established against him, then he has only distinguished between the two cases because of what relates to the impediments to declaring disbelief: in the case of the mocker he considered the impediments to be absent, and in the second case not absent. This is correct — but they forget it when attacking the Shaykh.

It should then be said: what if someone more knowledgeable and more learned in fiqh than this opponent sees — and is informed about the reality of many people — that the impediments are not absent in the case of the mocker or the reviler, because the circumstances in which some people live in certain countries have changed from what they were in earlier times, and because of the poor upbringing they are subjected to and the corruption of the media, which dyes people with its colour without their realising it, until reviling — and we seek refuge in Allah — runs on the tongue of one of them without his intending it? It is no secret to the reader that “intending the act” is a condition in many rulings. Among them is (the unintentional oath, laghw al-yamīn): two people may swear by Allah, and expiation becomes binding on one of them but not the other, the distinction arising only because of the presence or absence of intent. Among them also is the saying “By your life” and the like — expressions that used to run on people’s tongues without their intending an oath by them.

Likewise, disbelief does not attach to the legally responsible person unless he intends the act. There is a difference between “intending the act” and “intending disbelief,” which the Murjiʾah stipulate. The evidence for this is what is reported in the two Ṣaḥīḥs about the man who said: “O Allah, You are my servant and I am Your lord.” I say this while bearing in mind, as I mentioned just now, that there is a difference between intending disbelief and intending the act: the second is a condition, the first is not. The point is that if this scholar’s ijtihād leads him to hold that such matters constitute an impediment to applying the ruling of disbelief to the specific individual who mocks or reviles Allah, His Messenger or the religion — and we seek refuge in Allah — even if we might disagree with him in this ijtihād, there is nothing in the matter that deserves condemnation. Rather, describing such a mujtahid as a “Murjiʾ,” a “Jahmī,” or as one “from whom creed is not to be taken” — and we seek refuge in Allah — only shows the ignorance of the one who says it and his boldness, without knowledge, against what Allah has made sacred. We ask Allah for well-being.

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿAfīfī — and he is who he is — was asked: “What is the ruling on one who mocks the religion, or reviles the religion, the Messenger ﷺ or the Mighty Qurʾān: does he become a disbeliever even if he is ignorant?”

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq said: “This chapter, like the other chapters of disbelief: he is taught and disciplined. If he is taught and then persists obstinately after being taught and given clarification, he disbelieves. And when it is said, ‘He is not excused for ignorance,’ its meaning is that he is taught and disciplined; it does not mean that he is declared a disbeliever.” End quote.⁸ Reflect on how the Shaykh did not apply the ruling to the specific individual until after the impediment was removed. We have been afflicted with a group who are unacquainted with what the people of knowledge say about new events, and who oblige the scholar to speak with the tongue of their own ignorance. Although we think that some of them are keen to protect creed and the domain of tawḥīd, in return they have fallen into attacking the honour of scholars without right — and the flesh of scholars is poisoned, and Allah’s way of exposing those who belittle them is well known.

The picture becomes clear with this well-known example from one of the imams of this age. Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm (the Muftī) was asked about a man named Saʿd who reviled the religion of another man. He said:

“We inform you that, having examined the case papers and what His Eminence the President of the Court wrote, it did not appear to us that anything necessitates carrying out the punishment for apostasy on Saʿd, since he did not explicitly revile Islam; he only reviled that man’s religion, and this may mean that he intended that the man’s religious practice is bad — and legal punishments are averted by doubts. Accordingly, the said person is referred to the judge.” (Fatāwā wa Rasāʾil Samāḥat al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm).