When is a person held accountable for forgetfulness?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question : Any single instance that befalls a person.
Answer : As for Allah, He said when He commanded His servants to say[Al-Baqarah 2:286], He said, "I have done it." A person is not held accountable for forgetfulness except in matters concerning the rights of other people; in such cases, a person must be held accountable. If a person gave you a kilo of grapes and said, "Take it to my house," and you forgot and took it to your own house and ate it, are you held accountable to that person or not? Do you have to compensate him or not? You have to compensate him, but do you commit a sin? I am asking you, yes? You are making it difficult for me. No, the important thing is: do you commit a sin or not? You do not commit a sin, but if you ate it intentionally while remembering, you commit a sin and must compensate him, unless you were, as I said, in a state of forgetfulness. But I fear that if we open this door, everyone will claim to be in a state of forgetfulness regarding the other.
Answer : As for Allah, He said when He commanded His servants to say
Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred.
رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذْنَا إِن نَّسِينَا أَوْ أَخْطَأْنَا
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 3297 - 4600 متى يؤاخذ الإنسان على النسيان؟ ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.
