Is it permissible for me to say to a person: "This is a close friend of Allah," even though he is a believer and a person of piety?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: Is it permissible for me to say to a person that he is a close friend of Allah, even though he is a believer and a person of piety?
The Shaykh:
Is it permissible?
The questioner:
That I say to a person that he is a close friend of Allah, even though he is a believer and a person of piety.
The Shaykh:
We do not declare with certainty that anyone is a close friend of Allah, but we hope for them. We say: We hope that he is among the awliya (close friends of Allah). We hope, and we do not declare anyone pure before Allah. Yes.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: Is it permissible for me to say to a person that he is a close friend of Allah, even though he is a believer and a person of piety?
The Shaykh:
Is it permissible?
The questioner:
That I say to a person that he is a close friend of Allah, even though he is a believer and a person of piety.
The Shaykh:
We do not declare with certainty that anyone is a close friend of Allah, but we hope for them. We say: We hope that he is among the awliya (close friends of Allah). We hope, and we do not declare anyone pure before Allah. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [174 -858] هل يجوز لي أن أقول لشخص: إن هذا ولي لله، مع أنه مؤمن وصاحب تقوى؟ - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.