The Ruling on Major Disbelief and Apostasy

Question:
The first question: What constitutes major disbelief or apostasy? Is it limited to belief, denial, and refutation, or is it broader than that?

Answer:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his Companions. The issues of creed are very important, and it is obligatory to learn creed in all its chapters and all its issues, receiving them from the people of knowledge. It is not sufficient to merely pose questions and cast doubt upon them, for no matter how many questions are asked and answered, ignorance will remain greater. It is obligatory for one who wishes to benefit himself and his Muslim brothers to learn creed from beginning to end, to grasp its chapters and issues, and to receive them from the people of knowledge and from the sound books of the righteous Salaf. In this way, ignorance is removed from him, and he does not need to ask many questions. He will also be able to judge people’s matters and teach the ignorant, because he has become qualified in creed. Furthermore, one should not receive creed only from books or from reading and study, because it does not rely on these means initially, whether from books or from reading. Rather, it is taken by transmission from the people of knowledge and insight who understood it and perfected its issues. This is the obligatory duty of advice. As for what is currently circulating in the arena, with the multitude of questions regarding creed and its importance, from people who have not studied it before, or people who speak about creed and its matters out of ignorance, or relying on their reading of books or their study, this will only increase the ambiguity, add other complications, scatter efforts, and cause disagreement. If we return to our own understandings without taking knowledge from its sources, and instead rely on our reading and understanding, then understandings differ, perceptions differ, and consequently disagreement increases in these important matters. Our religion came to us with unity, not division, with loyalty to the people of faith and hostility toward the disbelievers. This is not achieved except by receiving the matters of religion from its scholars and its scholars who carried it from those before them, studied it, and transmitted it to those after them with a chain of narration. This is the correct path of knowledge in creed and in other matters, but creed is more important because it is the foundation, and because disagreement in it is a field for misguidance and division among Muslims. Disbelief and apostasy occur by committing one of the nullifiers of Islam. So whoever commits a known nullifier of Islam, as known by the people of knowledge, thereby becomes an apostate and a disbeliever. And we judge him by what appears from him, from his speech or his action. We judge him by that, because we have no choice but to judge by the apparent. As for the matters of the heart, only Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, knows them. So whoever speaks of disbelief or acts in disbelief, we judge him according to his speech, according to his utterance, and according to his action, if what he did or what he spoke of is among the matters of apostasy.