What is the ruling on one who denies any of the rulings of the Shari'ah?
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The questioner : Praise be to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). We have reached the point, Shaykh, that if a ruler rules more than once contrary to what Allah has revealed, not believing in that ruling, but rather out of desire or ..., then this is considered disbelief less than disbelief, as came from Ibn Abbas, and without specifying it as once or twice. So, did you mention anything about that?
The Shaykh : How?
The questioner : Did you mention that if a ruler denies with his tongue, this description of disbelief can be applied to him? And did you mention anything about the issue of ignorance? ... If we hear someone denying something in the ruling regarding the ruling in the Islamic Shari'ah, do we have to be certain that he is not ignorant before we rule on him, or say that this is a disbeliever? Or does our ruling that he is a disbeliever not imply that he is a disbeliever in the sight of Allah, the Exalted and Majestic? Is there a difference between ...?
The Shaykh : You say that he uttered a denial of something known from the Shari'ah, so merely denying it means we rule that he is a disbeliever, because we are religiously obligated to judge by the apparent, and Allah takes care of the hidden. As for the assumption that he may be excused by Allah due to his ignorance, this is certainly a possibility. But has his ignorance become apparent to us, or his knowledge? Or at least, does it predominate in our opinion that he denied what he knows of Islam, or does it predominate in our opinion that he denied or rejected what he does not know? We judge by what predominates in our opinion, and then his matter is left to Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. I said during my speech on this issue earlier that there are two cases: the case of faith and the case of Islam. Faith pertains to the heart, and Islam pertains to the limbs and what a person displays. So faith is a matter left to Allah, for He knows the hidden, He knows the secret and what is more hidden. Islam is what we are obligated to uphold. As long as the picture presented now is that a ruler denied something of Islam ... and we hold him accountable for his denial, if he is ignorant, his matter is left to Allah, the Glorious and Exalted, and we were ignorant of this ignorance and did not know of it. If we know of his ignorance and that his denial and rejection was due to the excuse of ignorance, we inform him and establish the proof against him, if we have the means to do so. Otherwise, this delay is a matter left to Allah, the Glorious and Exalted. So we deal with what appears to us, and his inner state is left to Allah. As for what is hidden from us, we are not obligated to deal with it. What confirms this for us and strengthens it is that we know that in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), in addition to other times, there was a group of people who displayed Islam and concealed disbelief, and they are those who were known in the Shari'ah as hypocrites, and their Lord, the Lord of the Worlds, described them as being in the lowest depth of the Fire. The Messenger (peace be upon him) knew some of these hypocrites and gave their names to the keeper of his secret, Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman (may Allah be pleased with him). Yet he did not treat them as those who openly deny disbelief, but rather applied the apparent ruling of Islam to them. As long as they were testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and establishing the prayer with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and fasting, and so on, as long as they were operating under these Shari'ah rulings, the Messenger (peace be upon him) considered them Muslims and treated them as Muslims, and did not uproot them, because sometimes slips of the tongue would appear from them that indicated their inner disbelief, as our Lord, the Glorious and Exalted, indicated in His saying:[Muhammad 47:30] If ... for us, because as long as a man, whatever man it is, displays what indicates his Islam, if something is associated with that which may indicate his denial and disbelief, but it is not explicit, we do not hold onto this that appears from him or may appear from him that would make him a disbeliever, as long as it is not explicit. Rather, on the contrary, we prioritize over this what is apparent from him of the acknowledgment of the two testimonies and their implications, and even the preservation of some of the Islamic rituals like prayer and fasting and the like. So the ruling is based on what appears from a person clearly. We judge him by it. If it was with knowledge, meaning he denied with knowledge, we apply the ruling of disbelief to him. If it was from ignorance, we establish the proof against him. If he returns, that is good; otherwise, we remain with our ruling that he is a disbeliever. There is a famous example among scholars: the one who abandons prayer, for example. The status of prayer is a ritual of Islam, and it is supposed that a Muslim cannot be ignorant of the obligation of the five prayers. So if the one who abandons prayer is brought to the Muslim ruler, he is ordered to pray and to maintain it, and he is asked to repent from abandoning it. If he repents and turns back, that is what is required. If he persists in abandoning prayer, then at that time he is killed. The scholars differed on whether in this case he is killed as a hudud punishment or for disbelief, with two famous opinions. The correct one is that he is killed for disbelief, because there is a very strong indication in this person who was given the choice between praying, repenting to Allah, and praying, or else death is before him. If he prefers death over prayer, that is the greatest proof that his abandoning of prayer was due to belief and not due to negligence or laziness. Because if it were due to negligence or laziness, he would return to prayer and prefer prayer, even if out of laziness, over death which has become closer to him than the straps of his sandals. So when we see such a person prefer being killed over praying, it is proof that he is a denier of prayer. Therefore, the stronger of the two opinions of the scholars regarding this person is that he is killed for disbelief and not as a hudud punishment. And so the scholars operate on the basis of considering what appears from a person. If stubbornness and persistence in disbelief appear from him, he is a disbeliever. Otherwise, he is treated as a Muslim, even though it is possible that there may be things that indicate the opposite of ... his Islam, as we mentioned regarding the matter of the hypocrites ...
The Shaykh : How?
The questioner : Did you mention that if a ruler denies with his tongue, this description of disbelief can be applied to him? And did you mention anything about the issue of ignorance? ... If we hear someone denying something in the ruling regarding the ruling in the Islamic Shari'ah, do we have to be certain that he is not ignorant before we rule on him, or say that this is a disbeliever? Or does our ruling that he is a disbeliever not imply that he is a disbeliever in the sight of Allah, the Exalted and Majestic? Is there a difference between ...?
The Shaykh : You say that he uttered a denial of something known from the Shari'ah, so merely denying it means we rule that he is a disbeliever, because we are religiously obligated to judge by the apparent, and Allah takes care of the hidden. As for the assumption that he may be excused by Allah due to his ignorance, this is certainly a possibility. But has his ignorance become apparent to us, or his knowledge? Or at least, does it predominate in our opinion that he denied what he knows of Islam, or does it predominate in our opinion that he denied or rejected what he does not know? We judge by what predominates in our opinion, and then his matter is left to Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. I said during my speech on this issue earlier that there are two cases: the case of faith and the case of Islam. Faith pertains to the heart, and Islam pertains to the limbs and what a person displays. So faith is a matter left to Allah, for He knows the hidden, He knows the secret and what is more hidden. Islam is what we are obligated to uphold. As long as the picture presented now is that a ruler denied something of Islam ... and we hold him accountable for his denial, if he is ignorant, his matter is left to Allah, the Glorious and Exalted, and we were ignorant of this ignorance and did not know of it. If we know of his ignorance and that his denial and rejection was due to the excuse of ignorance, we inform him and establish the proof against him, if we have the means to do so. Otherwise, this delay is a matter left to Allah, the Glorious and Exalted. So we deal with what appears to us, and his inner state is left to Allah. As for what is hidden from us, we are not obligated to deal with it. What confirms this for us and strengthens it is that we know that in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), in addition to other times, there was a group of people who displayed Islam and concealed disbelief, and they are those who were known in the Shari'ah as hypocrites, and their Lord, the Lord of the Worlds, described them as being in the lowest depth of the Fire. The Messenger (peace be upon him) knew some of these hypocrites and gave their names to the keeper of his secret, Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman (may Allah be pleased with him). Yet he did not treat them as those who openly deny disbelief, but rather applied the apparent ruling of Islam to them. As long as they were testifying that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and establishing the prayer with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and fasting, and so on, as long as they were operating under these Shari'ah rulings, the Messenger (peace be upon him) considered them Muslims and treated them as Muslims, and did not uproot them, because sometimes slips of the tongue would appear from them that indicated their inner disbelief, as our Lord, the Glorious and Exalted, indicated in His saying: