Leaving off the prohibition of the people of evil to avert the greater of two harms
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
The Minister of Consultation, may Allah protect you, Shaykh al-Islam Anas Bandara (may Allah have mercy on him), why did he not prohibit those who were entering the Red Sea with dogs and the city with dogs and a school in it?
The Shaykh:
Because if he had prohibited them, a type of evil would have occurred. They said, "Let them drink the intoxicants and not kill the Muslims," because if he prevented them from the intoxicants, they would have risen up against the Muslims and killed them. So leaving them alone was the lesser of the two harms to avert the greater of them, and this is from his jurisprudence (may Allah have mercy on him). Yes.
The Minister of Consultation, may Allah protect you, Shaykh al-Islam Anas Bandara (may Allah have mercy on him), why did he not prohibit those who were entering the Red Sea with dogs and the city with dogs and a school in it?
The Shaykh:
Because if he had prohibited them, a type of evil would have occurred. They said, "Let them drink the intoxicants and not kill the Muslims," because if he prevented them from the intoxicants, they would have risen up against the Muslims and killed them. So leaving them alone was the lesser of the two harms to avert the greater of them, and this is from his jurisprudence (may Allah have mercy on him). Yes.
Source
شرح العقيدة الواسطية [ صالح الفوزان ] [ الشرح القديم ]، بداية من قوله : يأمرون بالمعروف وينهون عن المنكر — islamhouse.com (1:07:20)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.