The ruling on classifying people out of personal desire
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, this question is actually one that always comes up. He says: Some people have personal desires (hawa) and they go about classifying people. We would like a word and guidance from Shaykh Salih on this matter.
Answer:
As for classifying people in the sense of assigning them their proper ranks, assigning people their proper ranks, and having a distinction between the people of good and the people of evil, between the people of the Sunnah and the people of innovation, and between the people of guidance and the people of misguidance, this is necessary. There must be a distinction between these groups, a distinction among them in love: one loves the believers and hates the disbelievers. This is essential. One who has no such distinction has no religion by which to distinguish between truth and falsehood.
However, if the motive for this is personal desire and hatred of people, this is forbidden. Such a person is a talebearer and a backbiter, and it is forbidden for him to do so. He follows his personal desire, praising whom he loves and criticizing whom he does not love, and warning against them out of personal desire. This, may Allah protect us from it, is[Sad 38:26]. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
Honorable Shaykh, this question is actually one that always comes up. He says: Some people have personal desires (hawa) and they go about classifying people. We would like a word and guidance from Shaykh Salih on this matter.
Answer:
As for classifying people in the sense of assigning them their proper ranks, assigning people their proper ranks, and having a distinction between the people of good and the people of evil, between the people of the Sunnah and the people of innovation, and between the people of guidance and the people of misguidance, this is necessary. There must be a distinction between these groups, a distinction among them in love: one loves the believers and hates the disbelievers. This is essential. One who has no such distinction has no religion by which to distinguish between truth and falsehood.
However, if the motive for this is personal desire and hatred of people, this is forbidden. Such a person is a talebearer and a backbiter, and it is forbidden for him to do so. He follows his personal desire, praising whom he loves and criticizing whom he does not love, and warning against them out of personal desire. This, may Allah protect us from it, is
and do not follow [your own] desire, as it will lead you astray from the way of Allah." Indeed, those who go astray from the way of Allah will have a severe punishment for having forgotten the Day of Account.
وَلَا تَتَّبِعِ الْهَوَىٰ فَيُضِلَّكَ عَن سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَضِلُّونَ عَن سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ بِمَا نَسُوا يَوْمَ الْحِسَابِThe presenter:
May Allah reward you.
Source
نور على الدرب - الفوزان - 03/007 — archive.org (14:25)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.