The ruling on one who prostrates to an idol without intending to worship it
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, how do we respond to the one who says that if a person prostrates to an idol without intending to worship it, he does not commit shirk (associating partners with Allah)?
Answer:
This is a clearly false statement for everyone to see: the one who prostrates to an idol is a disbeliever. As for the hearts, we do not judge them; the hearts are in the hand of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). We judge that he is a disbeliever and a mushrik (one who associates partners with Allah). Even if he dies without repenting, we treat him with the treatment of a trustworthy person. If he was previously a Muslim, he is an apostate from the religion of Islam. As for the matter of the hearts, that is not within the knowledge of Allah; only Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) knows it.
Honorable Shaykh, how do we respond to the one who says that if a person prostrates to an idol without intending to worship it, he does not commit shirk (associating partners with Allah)?
Answer:
This is a clearly false statement for everyone to see: the one who prostrates to an idol is a disbeliever. As for the hearts, we do not judge them; the hearts are in the hand of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). We judge that he is a disbeliever and a mushrik (one who associates partners with Allah). Even if he dies without repenting, we treat him with the treatment of a trustworthy person. If he was previously a Muslim, he is an apostate from the religion of Islam. As for the matter of the hearts, that is not within the knowledge of Allah; only Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) knows it.
Source
شرح قرة عيون الموحدين في تحقيق دعوة الأنبياء والمرسلين، باب ما جاء أن الغلو في قبور الصالحين يصيرها أوثانًا تُعبد من دون الله — islamhouse.com (1:03:11)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.