Advice regarding the eagerness for takfir (declaring someone a disbeliever) that has spread among the youth and the search for its causes
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Question:
This questioner says: Is there a word of advice regarding the eagerness for takfir (declaring someone a disbeliever) that has spread among the youth and the search for its causes, so that they may apply it to those who differ from them, even though these causes are not legitimate religious causes, but are based on desire or ignorance?
Answer:
As we have mentioned, the youth should turn to seeking knowledge and receive knowledge from its people. They should strive to understand the curricula required of them in schools, institutes, and colleges, which include curricula in tawhid (the oneness of Allah), fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), hadith, and tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis). They should turn to this and receive it.
Knowledge from teachers or from scholars in the mosques; it is not limited to learning from books and reading books, nor is it limited to learning from the ignorant among their peers. They must receive knowledge in its proper places and from its people, in the mosques or in scientific institutions. As for receiving it from unknown persons or from those who think they know, or as for them limiting themselves to reading books and being content with their own understanding, that is clear misguidance, and that is the error and destruction. Even if it appears to them that there is good in it, it will end in evil, it will end in ignorance. This is what caused this renewal and this throwing of accusations at one another; its cause is the defective understanding, may Allah protect us, and thinking one knows is what caused this thing, even among the shaykhs and teachers. In the mosques, they meet, love one another, and bond with one another. But if they divide, and each one has his own room, and not in a rest area, and I do not know what they call them, khalwat (seclusion), then here the estrangement occurs.
They become estranged from society, even from their fathers. Even from their fathers they become estranged. They are ignorant of their fathers, they look down on their fathers, they look down on society, they boycott the mosques, and they diminish the status of scientific institutions, and they are destroyed. Yes.
This questioner says: Is there a word of advice regarding the eagerness for takfir (declaring someone a disbeliever) that has spread among the youth and the search for its causes, so that they may apply it to those who differ from them, even though these causes are not legitimate religious causes, but are based on desire or ignorance?
Answer:
As we have mentioned, the youth should turn to seeking knowledge and receive knowledge from its people. They should strive to understand the curricula required of them in schools, institutes, and colleges, which include curricula in tawhid (the oneness of Allah), fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), hadith, and tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis). They should turn to this and receive it.
Knowledge from teachers or from scholars in the mosques; it is not limited to learning from books and reading books, nor is it limited to learning from the ignorant among their peers. They must receive knowledge in its proper places and from its people, in the mosques or in scientific institutions. As for receiving it from unknown persons or from those who think they know, or as for them limiting themselves to reading books and being content with their own understanding, that is clear misguidance, and that is the error and destruction. Even if it appears to them that there is good in it, it will end in evil, it will end in ignorance. This is what caused this renewal and this throwing of accusations at one another; its cause is the defective understanding, may Allah protect us, and thinking one knows is what caused this thing, even among the shaykhs and teachers. In the mosques, they meet, love one another, and bond with one another. But if they divide, and each one has his own room, and not in a rest area, and I do not know what they call them, khalwat (seclusion), then here the estrangement occurs.
They become estranged from society, even from their fathers. Even from their fathers they become estranged. They are ignorant of their fathers, they look down on their fathers, they look down on society, they boycott the mosques, and they diminish the status of scientific institutions, and they are destroyed. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [292 -560] نصيحة لما انتشر بين أوساط الشباب من التلهف للتكفير والبحث عن أسبابه - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.