What is meant by "actors" in the hadith: "The most severely punished people on the Day of Resurrection are a man who was killed by a prophet, or who killed a prophet, a leader of misguidance, and an actor among the actors"?

The questioner : Well, it is mentioned in the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), in a hadith narrated by Imam Ahmad and others regarding the three upon whom the anger of Allah is severe: a man who was killed by a prophet, or who killed a prophet. At the end of the hadith: Some students used this as evidence for the prohibition of the well-known acting that we discussed last night, and in which you explained the reasons for the prohibition known in theatrical plays.

The Shaykh : Yes, I do.

The questioner : Is this evidence valid? And I hope you will connect this to what al-Bukhari mentioned and titled in some of his chapters: "Chapter on what came regarding teaching people without analogy or acting".

The Shaykh : Yes, the "actor" here is the one who makes statues, because the well-known acting in the present age is a recent term. One of the errors some people fall into is interpreting some of the sacred texts with jurisprudential or customary terms. This interpretation is of that kind. It is not permissible to interpret "mumaththil" (actor) as the well-known acting, which is when a person portrays the image of another person, who may be a righteous man while the actor is wicked, or that one may be an old man and this one a young man, and so on. This is a meaning for which we have no precedent in the Arabic language as we know it. I said earlier that some scholars, due to a momentary lapse, interpret some of the sacred texts in line with this current term. If it were a legal term, many scholars use "dislike" (karahah) to mean that if a person does something, he has gone against what is preferable, but there is no sin in it. Then some phrases from some of the Salaf regarding the dislike of something are interpreted by them with this same technical meaning, and this is an error, because applying recent terms to old Arabic concepts corrupts the Shari'ah. Of this kind is the saying of the Exalted when He mentioned some sins in the noble verse, such as zina (unlawful sexual intercourse) and theft, and then followed it with the saying of the Mighty and Majestic: "All of that was disliked by your Lord."

The questioner : It was bad.

The Shaykh : It was bad and disliked.

The questioner : By your Lord.

The Shaykh : By your Lord, it was disliked. So the word "disliked" here does not mean the technical jurisprudential meaning, i.e., it is contrary to what? The preferable. So this zina, whose path is bad, is the disliked thing in some of the sacred texts. Therefore, when a phrase from Imam al-Shafi'i came up in a jurisprudential issue of extreme precision, which they addressed in the branches: if a man commits zina with a woman, and then she gives birth to a daughter who grows up and becomes a woman eligible for marriage, is it permissible for the father of the zina to marry her? There are two opinions among the scholars: the opinion of Abu Hanifa and those who agree with him among the Imams is that it is forbidden for him, just as if she were his daughter by lineage and by Shari'ah.
The Shafi'is mention that Imam al-Shafi'i disliked it, so they interpreted Imam al-Shafi'i's dislike with the modern jurisprudential term and said it is permissible but disliked. If we interpret Imam al-Shafi'i's words according to the Quranic expression, the opinion of Imam al-Shafi'i would agree with the opinion of Imam Abu Hanifa and his followers. Also, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah held that this man is not allowed to marry his daughter through the haram (forbidden) relationship because she is his daughter and came from his loins, so it is as they say in some other rulings: he is like one who marries himself.
But there is an opinion that I see as resembling a philosophy that relies on neither transmission nor reason, which is that haram water has no sanctity. I thought about this issue a lot because it is one of the fine points of disagreement that occurred among the Imams, and I saw the following:
Which direction is the qiblah (direction of prayer) for you?

The questioner : ...

The Shaykh : Exactly toward me. I thought about their saying that the haram does not make haram, and some of them narrated it as a hadith traced to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but that is not authentic.
Then he contradicted it and breastfed a daughter with her milk. There is no doubt that this breastfeeding makes this daughter the daughter of her husband in terms of milk kinship. And he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: The difference between this case and the other cases in which jurists do not hesitate to include them in the generality of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: The difference is that breastfeeding is usually permissible due to the permissibility of the husband and the milk, as it is said, the milk is for the husband, meaning he is the cause of its existence. So if the rare case we described occurred, where the husband did not permit his wife to breastfeed anyone, and yet she did, does this breastfeeding not affect the prohibition? I do not believe anyone would say no, because this entered the stomach of this nursling, and she was nourished by the milk whose cause of growth and existence is the husband. So I saw that this case strengthens the side of those who held that the daughter from zina is not permissible to be married by the man who committed zina with her mother, because the prohibition is that something from this man has passed to that daughter, so it is not permissible for him to marry her, even if she is a daughter from zina. Yes.