Reconciling the statement of Allah the Exalted: “And We were not to punish until We sent a messenger” with the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “My father and your father are in the Fire.”

The Shaykh : If the matter is of the unseen and a sound report informs us about a specific person that he is in the Fire, it is not permissible to negate this hadith based on the generality of the statement of Allah the Exalted: . The verse establishes a rule, but it leaves the details to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). The verse does not say: “Everyone who lived between the sending of Ibrahim and Isma'il and the sending of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon them) is from the people of the period of ignorance (fatrah) or from the people of tawhid (the oneness of Allah).” The verse does not address any of this, so that it can be said: “The meaning of the verse is that they are all from the people of the period of ignorance.” When the hadith says: “So-and-so is in the Fire and so-and-so is in the Fire,” we say that this contradicts the verse. In reality, it is the bad understanding that contradicts the verse, and consequently, the hadith contradicts the bad understanding. By negating the hadith with the verse, one arrives at a conclusion that contradicts the Muslim scholars, who all agreed on what I briefly mentioned earlier: that the Qur'an cannot be understood except through the way of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him). If the Messenger of Allah said at the end of that hadith: , then here emotions devoid of correct faith and sound reason intervene. You will not find any of those who claim to understand the Book correctly, contrary to the scholars of the Salaf who came before, and at their head the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), who dwell only on the parents of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him). They do not dwell at all on the beginning of this hadith, where the man asked: . They do not investigate the state of this father, but rather they investigate the state of the father of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him), because they rule by their desires and rule by their minds. They say: “It is reasonable that the father of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him), indeed the parents of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him), are in the Fire, while our Prophet (may Allah guide us, Mighty and Majestic is He) guided us to Islam.” They rule by their minds and do not rule by the religion that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) has chosen for them. We say: If the door of ruling by reason is opened, we have returned to the methodology of the Mu'tazilah, who said what is known among scholars as “the rational beautification and disapproval”. The Mu'tazilah say: “What the mind beautifies is beautiful, and what the mind disapproves of is ugly”. So, for them, the mind is the judge, and the Shari'ah is a follower of the mind. As for correct faith, as you heard earlier in the statement of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He): , the requirement of faith is to rule by the Shari'ah, not to rule by the mind. The Khalaf, or some of the Khalaf, following some of those who came before them from the Mu'tazilah, ruled by their minds, indeed by their desires, over some of the sound hadiths. They raised the whip and the voice simultaneously against the sound hadiths to invalidate them and to claim that they contradict the Noble Qur'an, when in reality they contradict only their desires. I do not say now: their minds.
There is no evidence that everyone who was before the sending of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was among those to whom the call did not reach. There is no such long and widespread claim. Rather, some scholars of kalam (theology) claim it, because they do not know the sound Sunnah. There are many, and very many, hadiths that inform us that many of those who died in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance (jahiliyyah) were judged by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), based on sound, established reports about them, to be in the Fire. For example, it came in the authentic collections: . That is, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) heard the punishment of the two men in the graves, being punished in their graves, and the beast heard their punishment, so it reared up against him (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) until it almost threw him to the ground. So he (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) asked: . So, they died in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance and they are being punished. Why are they being punished? Because they were among the mushrikin (those who associate partners with Allah). Why are they being punished, when they were mushrikin and the call did not reach them? This is impossible. So, the information of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that some of the mushrikin are in the Fire or are being punished in the graves is evidence that the call had reached them. It is not permissible to negate the sound Sunnah with the text of the Qur'an, because, as I mentioned earlier, the Sunnah clarifies the Qur'an and explains it, and does not contradict it in any way.