The Ruling on Accusing Society of Immorality and Generalizing About People
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
And the Shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him) said: How I love the one who left the society of fornication. He used to say in his book that the modern society was a society in which fornication and lewdness were prevalent.
The Shaykh:
Modern is not modern.
The questioner:
And no city is virtuous, and he mentions stories and rumors to support his claim.
The Shaykh:
Yes, this is foul speech, this is foul speech, and it adds to the talk and spreads the immorality, so such speech is not permissible, nor is it permissible to accuse people in general. People, and praise be to Allah, the Muslims, still have goodness among them, and even if evil is abundant, the goodness is present, and praise be to Allah. So it is not permissible to accuse people of what is not in them. And this one who writes these writings is encroaching on the sanctities of the Muslims, so it is obligatory for the one in authority to stop him at his limit and to put him on trial for this speech, because this makes the disbelievers happy, this makes the disbelievers happy.
There are people who are weeping over Islam now, saying it is gone, that there is no Islam in this time. They declare everyone to be in disbelief and misguidance, may Allah protect us from that. It is out of their zeal and enthusiasm, but that is not the case. Such speech is not permissible. It is not permissible to generalize about people, saying that everyone has perished, that everyone has gone astray, and that everyone has strayed from Islam. These are exaggerations that are not permissible. It is obligatory for a person to be moderate in his speech,[Al-An'am 6:152] so such reckless statements are not permissible. Even if it is out of zeal and enthusiasm for the religion, it is absolutely not permissible. A person must write in a moderate manner, warning against major sins, transgressions, and misguidance, warning people about them and explaining their punishments and effects on people, but he must not rule that all people have gone astray and perished. In the hadith, Sahih Muslim 2623a it is possible that all people might deviate, but, praise be to Allah, there is a group among them who are manifestly upon the truth until the Hour comes, whether you know of them or not. Therefore, it is not permissible for a person to apply these rulings to all Muslims.
The questioner:
And the Shaykh is not absolute if you see that after it is... Yes.
And the Shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him) said: How I love the one who left the society of fornication. He used to say in his book that the modern society was a society in which fornication and lewdness were prevalent.
The Shaykh:
Modern is not modern.
The questioner:
And no city is virtuous, and he mentions stories and rumors to support his claim.
The Shaykh:
Yes, this is foul speech, this is foul speech, and it adds to the talk and spreads the immorality, so such speech is not permissible, nor is it permissible to accuse people in general. People, and praise be to Allah, the Muslims, still have goodness among them, and even if evil is abundant, the goodness is present, and praise be to Allah. So it is not permissible to accuse people of what is not in them. And this one who writes these writings is encroaching on the sanctities of the Muslims, so it is obligatory for the one in authority to stop him at his limit and to put him on trial for this speech, because this makes the disbelievers happy, this makes the disbelievers happy.
There are people who are weeping over Islam now, saying it is gone, that there is no Islam in this time. They declare everyone to be in disbelief and misguidance, may Allah protect us from that. It is out of their zeal and enthusiasm, but that is not the case. Such speech is not permissible. It is not permissible to generalize about people, saying that everyone has perished, that everyone has gone astray, and that everyone has strayed from Islam. These are exaggerations that are not permissible. It is obligatory for a person to be moderate in his speech,
And when you testify, be just, even if
وَإِذَا قُلْتُمْ فَاعْدِلُوا وَلَوْ كَانَ ذَاWhen a person says that people are ruined he is himself ruined
قال هلك الناس فهو أهلكهمThe questioner:
And the Shaykh is not absolute if you see that after it is... Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 83 من 89|شرح العدة في شرح العمدة|كتاب الحدود|باب حد الزنا|صالح الفوزان|الفقه|كبار العلماء — youtube.com (1:09:58)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.