What is your opinion of the treatise (The Beneficial Answer Regarding the Ruling on Ignorance of Tawhid)?

Al-Huwaini: Well, here some of the young men among us in Egypt published a treatise, I do not know if perhaps it reached you, The Beneficial Answer on the Ruling of the One Ignorant of Tawhid, did it reach you?

The Shaykh : Yes, he did not do anything.
Al-Huwaini: So he means to say that a person can practice dissimulation and caution in speech but not in action, meaning for example, if I get into a predicament with a disbelieving man who will kill me, I might openly declare that I am a disbeliever or curse, and so on, that this exceeds the limit of speech to action. He said there is no caution in action; because this man, relying on the hadith of Salman, wanted to be cautious of these tyrants, so he brought a fly near a stone to be cautious, and yet he entered the Fire because of the fly; is the distinction between action and speech correct?

The Shaykh : First, "what is built upon a defective foundation is defective," so he built it upon this hadith, and it is a mawquf hadith, and in most cases it is from the Isra'iliyyat; as long as it speaks about what was before Islam; secondly: speech is action, and his distinction between action and speech is not valid, speech is action; and therefore he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in the authentic hadith: . And perhaps this brother, in my opinion, is not unaware of the statement of Imam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him): "that the heart has an action," and therefore faith increases and decreases; the faith that is settled in the heart is capable of increase; because this faith strengthens, it has an action befitting it, it strengthens by what the limbs of this heart perform; so the distinction between speech and action is like the distinction between a part and the whole; so speech is action; because when one speaks, the tongue moves, for example; so the movement of the tongue and what usually accompanies it until the speech comes out, all of this is action; then suppose this distinction is established — and he has no evidence for it — but what made it permissible for him to speak the word of disbelief in order to escape the oppression of the oppressive disbeliever, while action is forbidden, and the cause is the same? In my belief, he cannot bring a text from the Book of Allah or a hadith of the Messenger of Allah until we say the issue requires submission; meaning we say . Meaning he was coerced into speaking and uttering the word of disbelief in the claim of this man; but action is not permissible; so whoever commits an act of disbelief out of fear of being killed, for example, is a disbeliever; he cannot bring evidence for this, especially since the cause is the same; the one who permitted him to speak the word of disbelief to escape from being killed, for example, and oppression, should not usually permit him anything of action, such as prostrating to an idol if they forced him; so there is nothing indicating that this is disbelief, first from the linguistic aspect; because disbelief is denying faith after knowing it; as for saying the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God out of fear of being killed, this is permissible; and that if he prostrates to Mary like this, this is not permissible, rather it is disbelief and he exits the religion, and his heart remains tranquil with faith; the truth is that brothers there in Egypt, some of them are young in the path of seeking knowledge, but they are hasty and do not appreciate the right of specialization in knowledge and mastery of it with time, so they think that knowledge is so easy that in the span of one or two years he can say and understand and derive what no one from the people of knowledge and religion preceded him in doing; so in brief, the answer: speech is action and it is not possible to conceive of speech without an action from it; secondly: there is no evidence regarding the distinction that it is permissible to speak the word of disbelief to escape from oppression and killing, and it is not permissible to perform an act of disbelief for the same cause, there is no evidence for this, rather the previous verse .. in its generality includes that he should do, or say something to escape from disbelief.
Al-Huwaini: Well, my Shaykh, do you recall now an incident of an action performed by a man and he was not declared a disbeliever for it?

The Shaykh : And what did I do?
Al-Huwaini: Meaning a man performed an action whose appearance is disbelief, and the Companions did not rule him a disbeliever, or in the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), or something like that.

The Shaykh : Hatib ibn Balta'ah, what did he do, did he say or did he do?
Al-Huwaini: He did.

The Shaykh : Well, what was his action in their view?
Al-Huwaini: His action, Hatib's, had the appearance of disbelief.

The Shaykh : Well, and so they, 'Umar, with what?
Al-Huwaini: By cutting his neck.

The Shaykh, but . So the truth is that this distinction, I believe, is not Salafi, the one who says this.
Al-Huwaini: He is from the group of al-tawaquf and al-tabyin (suspension and clarification).

The Shaykh : And this I did not know before; but from my study of his treatise, this is not Salafi, and the Salafi call must be conveyed; and one of its fruits is that a Muslim does not dare to say what the Salaf did not say, because they were purer in hearts than us, and higher in understanding, and more eager for righteous deeds, and so on of the attributes that may not be found in the righteous among us in the last times; and we ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to inspire us to stand with the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah and upon the methodology of the righteous Salaf; and whoever deviates from the methodology of the righteous Salaf in understanding the Book and the Sunnah is in clear misguidance; because the Book and the Sunnah have aspects, each one interprets the Qur'an and the Sunnah according to what he sees with his mind or his desire or his way; but when one adheres to the interpretation of the Salaf for the reasons we mentioned, that is a guarantee for him from taking to the right or the left, like what came in the story of Ibn Mas'ud with the people of the circles, ; this is the life today, we do not see it in the Muslims; why do they wait for him? They seize the opportunity of going with him to the mosque, perhaps one of them gains a scientific benefit, either by hearing it from this imam, or a question is directed to him and he answers and he benefits, or he just asks; today if you do not bring them knowledge, they are far from you, if a scholar does not strive to teach people knowledge, no one comes to him; the conclusion: - meaning a matter that has nothing in it - - and here is the point - one of two things, there is no third; either you are more guided than the Companions of the Messenger, the Ummah of Muhammad, the Companions of the Messenger; or the second, which is without doubt, that you are clinging to a rope of misguidance; they said the truth, what they said; but the corruption is from the heads, from the sheikhs of the paths and the circles; these are the intentions of the Sufis and the path followers, their intentions are good but they went astray from the path by the direction of the corrupt heads who exploit and take advantage, , how many a seeker of good does not attain it; why? Because Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) told us - how many a movement of the tongue does not enter the gardens - . The narrator of the story said: meaning they turned into Khawarij, they rebelled against the righteous Caliph 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, so he uprooted their roots, even though they had a noise at night from the abundance of their recitation of the Qur'an and standing in night prayer, and so on; and the Messenger (peace be upon him) pointed to this reality as it came in Sahih al-Bukhari from the hadith of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him): - meaning from his origin and his descendants - . These Khawarij, when 'Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) called them, they said regarding the judgment between Muslims, he called them to submit to the judgment, they said "There is no judgment except for Allah," how can there be no judgment except for Allah when there is a good settlement . So they denied legal rulings because of their riding on their minds, and they went astray despite the abundance of their worship and fasting, and that did not benefit them at all; and therefore we strive with all striving to understand the Book of our Lord and the Sunnah of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) upon the methodology that our righteous Salaf were upon, we do not add to them, rather we will be less than them and below them; because we cannot perform their performance, they are more worshipful than us and more pious than us; so we, as it was said, "Be like them if you cannot be like them, for imitating the righteous is success," if we can imitate them, praise be to Allah, but that we add to them in obedience and worship, this is impossible, so we ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to make us successful in following the best Salaf who were after Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).