Declaring a person who deems the forbidden permissible to be a disbeliever, and the difference between minor and major sins and the one who interprets the text
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If someone commits a forbidden act while deeming it permissible, do we declare him a disbeliever? Is there a distinction between minor and major sins, or not? And is there a difference between the one who interprets the text and the one who knows the prohibition?
Answer:
This is restricted to matters on which Muslims have consensus regarding their prohibition, such as intoxicants, theft, unlawful sexual intercourse, and consuming riba (usury or interest). If someone deems permissible something on which Muslims have agreed is forbidden, he becomes a disbeliever. As for disputed issues where there is disagreement, with some scholars saying it is forbidden and others saying it is not, due to the conflicting evidence, the one who differs in these is not declared a disbeliever. However, if the evidence is stronger against his position, he is in error or misguided, but he is not ruled to be a disbeliever, given the existence of disagreement in the issue, for perhaps he adopted the second opinion thinking it was the correct one. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If someone commits a forbidden act while deeming it permissible, do we declare him a disbeliever? Is there a distinction between minor and major sins, or not? And is there a difference between the one who interprets the text and the one who knows the prohibition?
Answer:
This is restricted to matters on which Muslims have consensus regarding their prohibition, such as intoxicants, theft, unlawful sexual intercourse, and consuming riba (usury or interest). If someone deems permissible something on which Muslims have agreed is forbidden, he becomes a disbeliever. As for disputed issues where there is disagreement, with some scholars saying it is forbidden and others saying it is not, due to the conflicting evidence, the one who differs in these is not declared a disbeliever. However, if the evidence is stronger against his position, he is in error or misguided, but he is not ruled to be a disbeliever, given the existence of disagreement in the issue, for perhaps he adopted the second opinion thinking it was the correct one. Yes.
Source
شرح لمعة الاعتقاد [ صالح الفوزان ]، بداية من قوله : ونرى الحج والجهاد ماضيين مع طاعة كل إمام — islamhouse.com (57:06)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.