How do we determine what is known from the religion by necessity in our time?

The questioner : All right, Shaykh, in a little while, if Allah wills, we will discuss the topic of apostasy, but we need to know: what is the minimum threshold for the act of denying or rejecting something that is known from the religion by necessity in our era, especially given the spread of ignorance among Muslims that we see?

The Shaykh : What do you mean by the minimum threshold for denying what is known from the religion by necessity? What do you mean?

The questioner : I mean, what is the matter that is known from the religion by necessity in our time? Do you mean that we see many people denying things that are at the core of the religion, without knowing that they are at the core of this religion?

The Shaykh : So, teach them. This returns to the previous discussion. If that is the case, we teach them, whether what they denied is... whether it is from what is known from the religion by necessity, or it is included in that which the scholars of knowledge know specifically. Our duty is to teach them. So what else follows from this? We cannot now classify what is known by necessity as number one, two, fifteen, a hundred, and be done with it. But when the ruling is in our hands and some people come and deny what is known from the religion by necessity, or what is not so, and what was known from the religion by necessity, and they persist in the denial, at that time we rule them as disbelievers and we kill them, when the ruling is in our hands. But if it is from the matters in which there is scholarly disagreement, and the denier has a viewpoint to which some Muslims have previously arrived, then we try to teach him and guide him to the truth in what people have disagreed upon, and we do not declare him a disbeliever, nor does it mean we kill him, because he did not deny something known from the religion by necessity, but rather he denied what is, for example, the stronger position for us, or what is the truth for us, and so on. Therefore, all these questions, this question and the one before it, in reality, are only beneficial to research when the Muslim state is established. But today, we are longing for and weeping over the Muslim state, and we try to restore its original course as it was, and we research matters that were researched in their proper time.

The questioner : ... Shaykh, is the research always necessary for the answers to these questions so that we can discuss with some of the extremists or some of the ones who go to extremes?

The Shaykh : No problem, I know this, but also we should not forget how we direct these extremists. We tell them, as I said recently, that this is not the time for these studies. The time for this is when the Muslim state is established. At that time, we distinguish between what a Muslim is killed for for his denial, and what he is not killed for. For example: as you mentioned, I think in the previous session, that many rulers issued things that contradicted Islam, and you gave an example of that with the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun. Now I am saying: I found sects of the Islamic sects, like the Mu'tazilah, for example, and the Asha'irah, and others, who denied things that we consider to be from Islam, such as the denial by the Mu'tazilah, for example, of seeing Allah in the Hereafter, and their denial of the divine decree mentioned in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Yet they were not judged as disbelievers, because the Muslim rulers knew that these people had gone astray in this way while trying to understand Islam; they did not deny Islam, and they believe in it.

The questioner : Interpreting it figuratively.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : Interpreting it figuratively.

The Shaykh : Interpreting it figuratively. So likewise, we tell these people today that if they are from the extremists and we want to bring them to the straight path, we say, "My brother, the detail is such and such," as I did just now. But what is the benefit of researching these detailed, subsidiary matters today, when we have no power to enforce rulings? It has become, so to speak, a voluntary part of knowledge to research these issues before the time comes when we can execute the appropriate rulings against the violators.