Do those who say that ignorance is not an excuse fall into the category of takfir groups, or do we stop there, because some scholars of Najd said this?

The questioner : All right, those who say that ignorance is not an excuse—does this mean the methodology of the takfir groups, or do we stop there, because some of the scholars of Najd, some of the scholars of Najd, said this.

The Shaykh : Some Egyptians wrote some treatises, and without a doubt they do not make the distinctions that you just heard, citing the Book and the Sunnah. And our misfortunes today, the scientific ones, are great and very numerous. Recently, a printed book came to me, and perhaps it is fitting to tell you that the title is enough for you from the written work. Its title is:

The questioner : "Sharh al-Sadr" (Opening of the Chest).

The Shaykh : "Sharh al-Sadr" (Opening of the Chest).

The questioner : "Shifa' al-Sadr" (Healing of the Chest).

The Shaykh : "Shifa' al-Sadr" (Healing of the Chest).

The questioner : "By Denying the Punishment of the Grave."

The Shaykh : "By Denying the Punishment of the Grave." It is a large volume in which he discusses only the verses by which scholars argued for the proof of the punishment of the grave. The man promises, and I hope he will not be able to fulfill what he promised, that the second volume will be for discussing the hadiths by which scholars argue for the proof of the punishment of the grave. This man's name is Isma'il Mansur, and he is a doctor. And this is what suits him. However, you know what he wrote about. A veterinarian. The important thing is that before this—in the name of Allah—he wrote a book on the prohibition of the niqab for the Muslim woman.

The questioner : It is the same person...

The Shaykh: It is the same.

The questioner : He is Egyptian.

The Shaykh : Egyptian, meaning that now the scientific aspect is completely chaotic. A veterinarian comes and writes in a science in which only the great scholars can venture. In the introduction of this book, the first book on denying the punishment of the grave, there is a very serious introduction. He establishes a rule in the critique of hadiths, not only from the aspect of the chain of narration, but from the aspect of the text and the conformity of the hadiths with sound reason, meaning his reason. And the word "sound" also reminds me that it is one of the words of contradiction.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : It is also one of the words of contradiction, as you just heard. This is where we take the opposite meaning that comes to mind from the word "sound." There is a hadith that no one from the people of knowledge, absolutely, whether from hadith scholars, jurists, exegetes, or theologians, dared to say that this hadith is invalid. Rather, it is a hadith that the Ummah accepted, because first: it is in "the two Sahihs," in "Sahih al-Bukhari" and "Muslim," from the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), and there is more than one route from him, and it has some corroborating narrations, including from al-Nu'man ibn Bashir. Despite this, this man, under the title "Hadiths with Authentic Chains but Invalid Texts," brought this hadith, the text of which is: This man said, and unfortunately, he is a talkative, garrulous person who talks a lot. He has a flowing pen and writes two newspapers of empty, useless talk. He tells you: "Inform me, which dead person, from the day death was found until today, had his wealth follow him?" See how he deceives people. So this hadith is invalid by obvious reasoning. How can he say: Here we know that his family will follow him and return. As for Allahu Akbar, he understood that the wealth here is all wealth: houses, shops, trees, gardens, and so on. I have not seen anything of this in the world at all. And the cause of this, which we were hinting at, is ignorance. So we encourage students of knowledge to seek knowledge. There is a rule that they agreed to name it, in order to explain it to the non-Arabs. We, like our predecessors, expanded the Arabic language and established rules and principles for it so that we could understand it. But unfortunately, the Arabs themselves now need it, like the non-Arabs, or more. This rule says: "The whole is mentioned, but a part is intended." "The whole is mentioned, but a part is intended." The Messenger of Allah mentioned wealth, but he did not intend all wealth; he intended a specific thing that was customary in the old times. Perhaps we can find a similar thing in modern times. In the Noble Qur'an, as you all know, the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): The village has stones, trees, land, soil, water, animals, humans, and so on. Did the Lord intend the whole? No. The caravan means the group of animals: camels, mules, donkeys, humans, and so on. Did they intend the whole caravan? The answer is no. So they intended a part of this whole, which is the humans. It is the humans. This is a style in the Arabic language. The reality in which the text came clarifies what is intended from this generalization. The whole is mentioned: the village and the caravan, and a part of it is intended. Here, in the verse, in the authentic hadith whose authenticity is agreed upon, In another narration I referred to earlier, which is the hadith of al-Nu'man ibn Bashir: , The first hadith explained it. Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and others explained it by saying: "His slaves." This was actually present among the Arabs, because the Arabs before Islam, excuse me, before Islam, and in the era of Jahiliyyah, as you know, used to capture each other and kill each other, and so on. And they used to enslave each other, so the slaves lived under the protection of the masters. When the master died, it would be among the honors of this master that this caravan of slaves would go out, as they do today regarding the military who die; they bring out the vehicle and the soldiers and the empty, vacant equipment, and so on. This ignorant man, ignorant first of the language and second of history, Allah blinded him to all these facts. He looked at the hadith with the language of ignorance. He followed it and said: "Where is the wealth that follows him? Inform me, is there anyone who dies and his wealth follows him?" and so on. If you know that this man did this to some of the authentic hadiths in the introduction, what will be his action in the second volume, where he wants to critique hadiths, and they are in the dozens? Because al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar and others say: "The hadith of the punishment of the grave, meaning their hadith, is mutawatir from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." And it is sufficient for you as evidence that all the books of the Sunnah are printed, between "the two Sahihs" and others, that the Messenger (peace be upon him) used to seek refuge before the taslim at the end of the prayer from the punishment of the grave. He used to seek refuge from four things, and he also ordered his Ummah by his saying (peace be upon him): This man now, because of his ignorance, wants to weaken all the hadiths of the punishment of the grave. And his weakening will be in his way. I judge before I see his book, based on what I saw in his introduction. He will say: "This has an authentic chain, but I reject it by one of two means: either he will say, and this is a known saying of the Mu'tazilah from old times, and of some followers of some of the Mu'tazilah recently, even if they do not claim affiliation with the Mu'tazilah, although there is a man now who takes pride in his affiliation with the Mu'tazilah, and this is what this country was built upon. The intended group is the Mu'tazilah, who say: 'Creed is not established by ahad hadiths.' And there is an Islamic party that I lived with in Damascus for many years, and here as well, that adopts this Mu'tazili creed, which is that creed is not established by an authentic hadith. So this is the least this man will say: Yes, the hadith of the punishment of the grave, this or another, is an authentic hadith, but it is an ahad hadith, and the people of knowledge, meaning their group from the Mu'tazilah, say that an ahad hadith does not establish a creed. Or he will say: This is not reasonable, it is not accepted by sound reason. And you know that sound reason is his reason. And thus, we are now living in a time full of fitnah of many and very numerous types. Therefore, nothing protects you, O young people, from leaning to the right and the left, and from being led astray with the astray in a far astrayness, except if you hold fast to the protection. And the protection, as I always and forever say, is limited to three things: the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and what the Qur'an and the Sunnah indicate by their interpretation as it was with the Salaf al-Salih. And the scholars mean by the Salaf al-Salih the people of the three centuries, whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) testified to their excellence in the mutawatir hadith, the text of which is: