The Ruling on Declaring a Specific Deceased Christian a Disbeliever
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : All right, Shaykh, if a Christian dies, is it permissible to rule that he is in the Fire as a specific ruling?
The Shaykh : No, we rule based on the apparent. And what compels us to put ourselves in a difficult position and say with certainty what the outcome is, except that it amounts to presuming upon Allah? Because it is possible, it is possible that in his final breath, before his soul reaches his throat, he testifies to the oneness of Allah and to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) as a messenger. So it is sufficient for us to rule based on the apparent, and Allah takes care of the hidden matters.
The Shaykh : No, we rule based on the apparent. And what compels us to put ourselves in a difficult position and say with certainty what the outcome is, except that it amounts to presuming upon Allah? Because it is possible, it is possible that in his final breath, before his soul reaches his throat, he testifies to the oneness of Allah and to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) as a messenger. So it is sufficient for us to rule based on the apparent, and Allah takes care of the hidden matters.
Source
سلسلة الهدى والنور، رقم 1411 في قناة «تسجيلات الإمام الألباني - محمد أبو ليلى الأثري» — youtube.com (2:58)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.