Explaining the division of disbelief into two types, and providing practical examples.

The Shaykh : So, keep this division in mind, for it is a fair division, and it removes from your minds many major scholarly problems. Disbelief is of two kinds: doctrinal disbelief, which takes one out of the religion, and practical disbelief, which does not take one out of the religion. Hypocrisy is of two kinds: hypocrisy of the heart, which takes one out of the religion, and practical hypocrisy, which does not take one out of the religion. Now, take an example from the reality of some of the young people who know only a little of Islam: He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , . If you opened the dictionaries arranged by the words of the hadiths, you would find hundreds of hadiths: "Whoever does such-and-such has committed disbelief," "has committed disbelief," "has committed disbelief." Is the meaning: he has committed a disbelief that takes him out of the religion and causes him to remain in the Fire forever with the disbelievers, or is it something else? It is: practical disbelief. The matter differs when it is settled in the heart. So, any Muslim, any Muslim who disbelieves in prayer with his heart, this is the disbeliever who remains in the Fire forever, because he disbelieved with his heart. And any Muslim who believes in the obligation of prayer, but is negligent in performing it, has done the deed of the disbeliever, like the hypocrite whose verse is three; he did the deed of whom? The disbelievers. But he does not believe with the belief of the disbelievers, he does not hold the belief of the disbelievers, so he is not gathered with the disbelievers remaining in the Fire forever, because he differs from them in creed but agrees with them in action. Likewise, the one who abandons prayer, if he abandons it out of belief, as some of the young people say, "My brother, prayer was for those Bedouins and Arabs, and they were dirty and backward, but now, what Allah wills, we have bathrooms and facilities, I don't know what, and so on, so there is no need for purity, ablution, and prayer, and so on. There are types of exercise that suffice us for prayer." There is no doubt that this is disbelief itself. Or a person who abandons prayer, and you say to him: "My brother, you do not pray!" He says to you: "Allah will accept our repentance." That is, he acknowledges the prayer, but Satan has taken hold of him and says to him: just as they say about us in Syria: "Haa, my donkey, haa," meaning he drives him as a person drives a beast. If we distinguish between doctrinal disbelief and practical disbelief, and between doctrinal hypocrisy and practical hypocrisy, we are free from many stirring and very numerous problems: This is a point that attracts the attention of some people like us. Why do some shaykhs always keep repeating: ? Well, the one who said: , also said: . Does everyone who swears by other than Allah commit disbelief? The answer is: No. Does everyone who abandons prayer commit disbelief? The answer is: No. But if we say here: Yes, everyone who abandons prayer has committed disbelief, even if he believes in it, and there is one who swears by other than Allah and has committed shirk, not disbelief? No, not always. What is the detail? The detail is this: Disbelief is either a belief, in which case it causes its owner to remain in the Fire forever, or it is an action, in which case he does the action of the disbelievers, but he does not believe with the belief of the disbelievers: he does not deny prayer as the disbelievers deny it. Likewise, the one who swears by other than Allah has committed disbelief; he has two states: either he considers it permissible in his heart to swear by a slave among the slaves of his Lord, and the meaning of this is that he has elevated the status of this slave by whom he swore and equated him with Allah.