The argument of those who say there is no excuse for ignorance: "And when your Lord took from the children of Adam, from their backs, their descendants and made them testify against themselves, 'Am I not your Lord?' They said, 'Yes, we testify'"?

The questioner : The argument of those who say this, may Allah reward you: Those who hold this view argue that a person is not excused by ignorance, and that Allah the Mighty and Majestic took the covenant from their backs. What is your opinion of this argument, may Allah reward you?

The Shaykh : This, may Allah reward you, is a very weak argument. Otherwise, what is the meaning of the previous verse: ? This argument implies negating the wisdom of sending the messengers and sending down the books. If what happened in the world of spirits, as they claim, were sufficient to establish the argument, our Lord the Exalted would not have said: and there would have been no extreme need to send the messengers and send down the books. This is a wrong argument of the Mu'tazilah, because the Mu'tazilah interpret the verse I mentioned earlier: meaning: intellect. This is, of course, a deviation from the Sunnah, because the Sunnah clarifies that four types of people on the Day of Resurrection will present their argument: the child who has not reached the age of accountability, the insane person, the old man who is fading away, and the fourth one I do not remember now. The important point is that these people are judged on the Day of Resurrection with a judgment different from that of other people. Allah Blessed and Exalted is He sends a messenger to them, so whoever obeys this messenger enters Paradise, and whoever disobeys him enters the Fire. Therefore, the previous verse and this hadith, and what is in the books of exegesis from the Salaf, invalidate the argument by the verse I mentioned earlier. The hadith I also mentioned earlier is among the proofs If the previous argument were correct, this hadith would have no meaning at all, because the previous argument equates the one who heard of the messenger with the one who did not hear of him at all, and no scholar ever says this.