The Accusation: “The Shaykh Holds That There Is No Disbelief Except the Disbelief of Denial”

It was said long ago to a man: “How did you know it was a lie?” He said: “From its size.”

Whoever studies the Shaykh’s words will be certain that by his saying, “Disbelief is only through denial (juḥūd),” he meant: whoever denies one of the obligations agreed upon by consensus — not every form of disbelief, as the attackers claim. We have already seen what proves this accusation false.

Some of them went so far as to describe the Shaykh as one of the Jahmiyyah and the extreme Murjiʾah, on account of a sentence they presented cut off from its context. The Shaykh said: “The Murjiʾah meet with us in not declaring disbelief except by denial.” This forsaken person said: “We are not lying about the Shaykh; here he says with his own tongue that he agrees with the Murjiʾah!”

The Shaykh meant the abandonment of actions, such as prayer and others. His position is that the one who abandons individual obligations is not a disbeliever except through denial — and this is the position of the Salaf, except regarding prayer according to the preponderant view. Merely quoting what this forsaken person said is enough to refute him.

Imam Aḥmad said in his letter to Musaddad ibn Musarhad: “Nothing takes a man out of Islam except associating partners with Allah the Almighty, or rejecting one of the obligations of Allah, denying it.”

The disagreement concerning the one who abandons prayer is well known; whoever holds that the one who abandons it out of laziness and negligence is a disbeliever may restrict the previous statement. As is well known about the Shaykh, he does not declare the abandoner of prayer a disbeliever except through denial, and he is not known to have stated as a general rule “that disbelief is only through denial.” How could he, when he declares disbelief on account of mere speech or action, as we have seen?

On this point, the Shaykh — may Allah have mercy on him — said in his book Ḥukm Tārik al-Ṣalāh: “Declaring a Muslim who affirms tawḥīd to be a disbeliever on account of an action that issues from him is not permissible until it becomes clear that he denies, even if only part of what Allah has legislated.” End quote.¹

The people of desires exploited this expression and displayed it in their books cut off from what comes before and after it, as though the Shaykh had meant it unrestrictedly. But on referring back, the fair-minded will find that the Shaykh meant the obligations, for he established this in the context of speaking about the one who abandons prayer. That is why he followed it immediately with his words: “like the one who is called to prayer, or else he is killed” (see Ḥukm Tārik al-Ṣalāh). So what is the difference between his statement and the earlier statement of Imam Aḥmad?