What is the difference between shirk (associating partners with Allah) and kufr (disbelief)?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
What is the difference between shirk (associating partners with Allah) and kufr (disbelief)?
Answer:
Kufr is broader, because a disbeliever may be one who associates partners with Allah, or he may be one who denies the Lord, Glorified and Exalted is He, and negates His attributes, not believing in a Lord, such as communism, for example, or Pharaoh and his followers, who denied the attributes. He may also be one who acknowledges the existence of the Lord but associates others with Him; this is the one who associates partners with Allah. So a disbeliever may be one who associates partners with Allah, or he may be one who denies the Lord and negates His attributes, unlike the one who associates partners with Allah, who acknowledges the Lord but associates others with Him.
What is the difference between shirk (associating partners with Allah) and kufr (disbelief)?
Answer:
Kufr is broader, because a disbeliever may be one who associates partners with Allah, or he may be one who denies the Lord, Glorified and Exalted is He, and negates His attributes, not believing in a Lord, such as communism, for example, or Pharaoh and his followers, who denied the attributes. He may also be one who acknowledges the existence of the Lord but associates others with Him; this is the one who associates partners with Allah. So a disbeliever may be one who associates partners with Allah, or he may be one who denies the Lord and negates His attributes, unlike the one who associates partners with Allah, who acknowledges the Lord but associates others with Him.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 36من279/مالفرق بين الشرك والكفر/أسألة شرح نواقض الآسلام/صالح الفوزان/كبار العلماء — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.