The ruling on declaring a disbeliever to be in the Fire after his death

Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, I heard that it is not permissible to declare a disbeliever to be in the Fire after his death, such that if one of the disbelievers dies in this time, it is not permissible to say that so-and-so is among the people of the Fire.

Answer:
As for the one who dies upon disbelief and shirk (associating partners with Allah), we treat him as we treat disbelievers and polytheists: we do not pray over him, we do not wash him, we do not bury him in the graves of Muslims, we do not treat him as a Muslim, and he does not inherit; his Muslim relative does not inherit from him because he is a disbeliever. He is a disbeliever. We treat him according to the apparent ruling. As for Paradise and the Fire, that is not for us to know, Glorified and Exalted is He, just as we do not know; we do not know. Perhaps he was a disbeliever before he died. We do not know and we do not know. But regarding what we do not know, we are obligated by what appears to us, which is disbelief, so we treat him as a polytheist. We do not seek forgiveness for him, and we do not make du'a' (supplication) for him; we treat him as a polytheist. As for the matter of Paradise and the Fire, that is a matter for Allah, who knows, Glorified and Exalted is He.