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Q & A --> Faith and Doctrine --> The Ten Revocations of Islamic Belief: Judging those who persistently sin as non-Muslims

Question : What line separates atheism from Islam? Is the person who confesses to believe in One God and in Muhammad as the Prophet of that God, and who despite his praying and fasting then commits acts which are contrary to the nature of Islam, to be considered guilty of disbelief [literally: polytheism, shirk]? What is the ruling on someone who persists in committing sinful acts?

Fatwa in Brief: There are ten ways in which Muslims may lose their Islam. These include: polytheism; believing in [and praying to] intermediaries [other than God] to intercede for one; refusing to declare polytheists to be non-Muslim; preferring guidance offered by [someone or something] other than the Prophet (upon him be peace); hating any of the teachings of the Prophet (upon him be peace); mocking any part of the religion; practicing magic; cooperating with polytheists against Muslims; believing that specific people do not need to follow the Prophet (upon him be peace); and turning away from the religion of God, neither learning nor applying it (Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, al-Durrar al-Sunniyah, 5th edition, pp 10-91).

Willful persistence in sinning, in full awareness that one commits a sin, will lead to moral destruction and lends support to the practice of sins. Such persistence is also a clear indication of polytheism. It is as if the sinner were saying: I am aware that charging interest on money lent (riba) and adultery are sins; yet, I will nevertheless continue to do them. This is a violation, a clear transgression [over the boundaries of the religion]; there is no doubt that this person is an unbeliever.

Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini. Audio Tape. “Al-Ithba’a wa Atharuh

Response:
This opinion is not accurate and misleading. In fact, composed in the most vague and prosaic of language, the above opinion can result in serious harm. For, it opens the door for people to be judged as non-Muslims by anyone, who despite his/her religious commitment, fails to understand this language. According to the above legal opinion [by ‘Abd al-Wahhab], a Muslim who remains unaware [of the demands of his/her religion] could be described as “turning away from the religion of God, neither learning nor applying it”. Such a person would necessarily be declared an unbeliever, or that she prefers the “guidance of [someone or something] other than the Prophet”, if s/he did not attend a lesson in religion when invited. By the same [intolerant] logic, a man could be declared an unbeliever if he shaved his beard, and so on. To judge anyone who persists in sin as an unbeliever is the approach of the Kharijites, which is rejected by mainstream Muslims.

Commentary:
Sins committed by a Muslim, be they deadly or trivial, do not render a Muslim a non-believer. This is supported by the Qur’anic verse:

Lo! Allah pardoneth not that partners should be ascribed unto Him. He pardoneth all save that to whom He will”. (Q. 4:116)

And the saying of the Prophet (upon him be peace) related by ‘Ubayda ibn al-Samat: “‘Give me your pledge that you will associate no partner with God, that you will never steal, or commit adultery, destroy your children, slander, or utter a lie, and that you will never disobey an appropriate order [i.e. one that is given by your rightful leader]. Whoever amongst you satisfies these things will be rewarded by God; while those amongst who you fail to do these things, and is [thus] punished in this life, then such punishment shall be your atonement; while whoever amongst you fails to do these things and your wrongdoing is concealed by God, then it must be left to God either to forgive or to punish you’. And we gave him [the Prophet] our pledge”.[1] Thus acts of worship and their abandonment are listed as other than the sin of polytheism.

The Muslim jurists drew attention to the seriousness of pronouncing someone a disbeliever. [According to them] A believer should not be declared an unbeliever when there is any possibility that a mistake has been made and that he or she is a believer. Rather, no Muslim may be judged non-Muslim unless all scholars unanimously agree that there is no doubt that s/he has committed an act of disbelief, which constitutes abandoning the faith. By the same token, s/he may not be declared non-Muslim when there remains a possibility, no matter how far-fetched this may be, that his/her words and deeds do not clearly indicate a lack of belief.

The Prophet (upon him be peace) said: “Whoever wrongly describes a man as an unbeliever or as an enemy of God will himself be judged guilty of disbelief”. This is a serious warning to all those who mistakenly and recklessly rush to judge the faith of Muslims.

No one who prays in the direction of Mecca [lit: “people of the Qibla”] may be called an unbeliever, unless he willfully and repeatedly denies the legitimacy of established Shari‘ah law because he would then be denying Divine legislation. Whoever permits what is unanimously and indisputably prohibited and judged as sinful by the jurists of Islam, such as the eating of pork or the committing of adultery, then such a one has certainly become an unbeliever. Whoever also flagrantly commits clear sinful acts like the killing of protected ones [non-combatants] and usurps their possessions without claiming a religious exemption or justification, then such a person is certainly a non-believer. If the person who commits such heinous acts claims a religious justification like the Kharijites, such actions and negligence do not constitute sufficient proof of disbelief. The majority of Muslim jurists argue that, even those Muslims who shed the blood of believers and steal from them, may not be described as non-believers as long as their actions are committed under a religious justification. Likewise, the carrying out of any prohibited act with a religious justification, in and of itself, should not result in a person being declared non-Muslim.

Ibn Qudama remarked: It was reported that Ibn Math’un drank wine believing that it was permitted, so ‘Umar applied the legal punishment to him, but refrained from judging him as an unbeliever. The same also happened with Abu Jundul ibn Suhail and a group of his companions, who drank wine in the Levant believing that it was allowed. In the latter case, they took the following verse as proof:

“There shall be no sin (imputed) unto those who believe and do good works for what they may have eaten”. (Q. 5:93)

Yet, they [Abu Jundul and companions] were not judged as unbelievers. Rather they were informed that wine is prohibited; thereafter, they repented and the legal punishment was applied to them. The same logic applies to any person who commits a deed, and is unaware of its prohibition. This person may not be judged an unbeliever until s/he knows and acknowledges that his or her deed is unequivocally prohibited, and thus all misunderstanding and ambiguity has been cleared up.[2]

These carefully formulated rules, established by critical scholars such as Ibn Qudama, provide more reliable guidelines than the generally and vaguely worded list mentioned above of the ten alleged revocations of Islam. Indeed, these revocations have encouraged many religious youth to recklessly deny Muslims their faith, without proof or authority. And God is the Most Knowing.

Shaykh ‘Abd Allah Wahhab ibn Nassir al-Tariri observed:

When dying, Abu al-Hasan al-‘Ashari was quoted as saying: “Bear witness that I have not judged any of the people of the Qibla [i.e. Muslims] to be an unbeliever; for all follow the one God”. Imam al-Zahabi commented: “I share the same belief”. And, in the latter stages of his life, Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah agreed: “I would never judge anyone from our Umma an unbeliever”. Indeed, he [Ibn Taymiyya] goes further when quoting from a Prophetic hadith: “No-one performs the ritual ablution (wudu’), but a believer”. So, on this basis, anyone who performs their prayers and ablutions is a Muslim. Look at the sayings of the above Imams, al-‘Ashari, al-Zahabi and Ibn Taymiyya, who are authorities in Islamic jurisprudence and religious doctrine. Their experience, knowledge, and scholarship, especially of the beliefs and dogmas of different sects, impacted deeply upon their judgment, and have made them extremely wary of the denial of Islam to anyone. These scholars refused to judge any Muslim as an unbeliever. With them in mind, how can those who have not attained their knowledge and scholarship make such claims or pretend to be able to pronounce judgment over the faith of others?[3]

According to the Fatwa Centre, supervised by Dr. ‘Abdullah al-Faqih:

A Muslim cannot be judged as an unbeliever unless he is guilty of some kind of speech, action, or belief, which, according to the Holy Book and Sunna, constitutes a major act of disbelief, and/or that Muslim scholars unanimously declare that his acts warrant this judgment. The conditions making this judgment possible include the absence of any mitigating factors: a disbeliever can only be, therefore, an adult of sound mind, who is fully aware that he is committing disbelief unexcused by ignorance or based on claims of interpretation in issues that are open to interpretation or are not widely known. And God Almighty is the Most Knowing.
 

Dr. Muhammad Fouad


[1] Al-Bukhari 18.

[2] Ibn Qudama, al-Mughni 21/9; cf. Ibn ‘Abidin’s commentary 224/4.

[3] Shaykh al-Tariri is a faculty member at Imam Muhammad Ibn Sa‘ud Islamic University.