The Shaykh al-Abaylan’s transmission of the fatwas of Shaykh Ibn Ibrahim regarding the ruling on one who insults the religion, and Shaykh al-Albani’s agreement with these fatwas.

The questioner : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may blessings and peace be upon our Prophet and Messenger Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
Your Excellency,The Shaykh : Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (may Allah preserve him),
In a previous meeting with you three years ago, you were asked about some foolish people who mock the religion and perhaps insult the religion. Your Eminence’s answer was that such people are to be disciplined and flogged with whips, and then left alone, and no ruling is issued against them. In reality, I understood this matter from some people in a way that is not intended.The Shaykh : Nasir (may Allah preserve him), in that they thought thatThe Shaykh : mocking, for example, the religion, or insulting the religion, or insulting the Prophet is not disbelief.
So I would like fromThe Shaykh : (may Allah preserve him) a clarification of this, and if you permit me,The Shaykh : before the answer, to read a little from the fatwas ofThe Shaykh : Muhammad Ibrahim, the scholar,The Shaykh : Muhammad Ibrahim, the Mufti of the Saudi lands (may Allah have mercy on him). He was askedThe Shaykh : about this matter, and he answered:

The Shaykh : If you wish, please proceed.

The questioner : "In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. From Muhammad ibn Ibrahim to the Honorable Assistant Judge of the Samtah Court.
Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings.
We have reviewed your letter, number and date such-and-such, regarding the matter of Mu'awwad ibn So-and-so, and what he uttered cursing the religion of Muhammad ibn al-Mahdi, and what you have decreed against him, which is flogging with ten lashes as a discretionary punishment, and his repentance, then his seeking forgiveness and asking us to be informed of this. We inform you that his cursing the religion of Muhammad ibn al-Mahdi, given that Muhammad al-Mahdi is a Muslim, is cursing the Islamic religion. And cursing the religion, as is not hidden from you, is apostasy, may Allah protect us from it. Therefore, in addition to what you have carried out, you must summon the aforementioned person and order him to perform ghusl, then pronounce the two testimonies of faith, and renew his repentance after informing him of its three conditions: ceasing the cause of the sin, feeling remorse for having committed it, and resolving not to return to it.
And considering what you mentioned about him, that he is ignorant of the meaning of what he uttered, it is sufficient to apply what you have decreed against him as a discretionary punishment. May Allah guide you. Peace be upon you. The Mufti of the Saudi lands."
Now, if you permit me, another fatwa.

The Shaykh : Please go ahead.

The questioner : Also, here is the ruling on one who called the science of tawhid "the science of al-tawhish" and the science of fiqh "the science of the old women’s stories."

The Shaykh : What did he call it?

The questioner : The old women’s stories.

The Shaykh : What does that mean? Old women?

The questioner : Old women.

The Shaykh : What does "hazawi" mean?

The questioner : It means the stories, the stories of the old women, meaning.

The Shaykh : Is it a Najdi dialect term?

The questioner : I do not know, O Shaykh.

The Shaykh: Okay

The questioner : From Muhammad ibn Ibrahim to the Honorable Judge of Harjab (may Allah preserve him).
Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings. And after: Your letter, number such-and-such and date such-and-such, has reached us, in which you mentioned the situation of some of the young students in the schools, and that they call the science of tawhid "the science of al-tawhish" and call the science of fiqh "the science of the old women’s stories." You ask about the ruling on these people? The answer is that there is no doubt that such people are being unjust to the Islamic Shari'ah and its sciences. This indicates their disrespect for the religion and their boldness toward the Lord of the worlds. And whoever utters this statement about the science of tawhid, by which Allah sent the messengers and sent down the books, and he knows its meaning, there is no doubt that he is an apostate.
But it is necessary to know the difference between ruling on a specific individual and saying that whoever does such-and-such or says such-and-such is a disbeliever. Because for a specific individual, it is necessary to establish that it issued from him by his choice and that he is a mukallaf (one of legal age and sound mind).
And whoever utters this statement about the science of fiqh is mistaken and being unjust to the sciences of the Shari'ah, but it does not reach the point of ruling on him as an apostate. In any case, it is necessary to apply a discretionary punishment to everyone who utters such ugly words. If they are children and foolish people, it is lighter; and if they are adults and of sound mind, it is heavier, may Allah protect us from it.
And the truth is that this is something to be wondered at, especially from school students who receive these sciences in their schools, and they are among their most important curricula.
This is the intended point from his words (may Allah have mercy on him). Please proceed, (may Allah preserve you).

The Shaykh : What I see, and by which I testify to Allah, and what I say after praising Allah and sending blessings and peace upon His Messenger, is that the matter does not exceed, in my belief, what I heard from you of the words ofThe Shaykh : (may Allah have mercy on him) in his fatwas. But I want to clarify something included in the answer ofThe Shaykh : but it needs some explanation. I say that it is known to all scholars that words are judged by the intentions of their speakers. So if a speaker speaks a word that allows for a matter contrary to the Shari'ah, and the contradiction may be doubled, it may be disbelief and apostasy, or it may be a sin. The clearest example of that is swearing by other than Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). We all know the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and in the other wording So we cannot say to everyone who swears by other than Allah that it is disbelief, apostasy. But this swearing by other than Allah may be disbelief, apostasy, or it may not be. Therefore, to confirm one of the two possibilities and remove the other, we must know, in one way or another, what this swearer intended. If he intended to actually exalt the one by whom he swore, who is other than the Lord of the worlds (Mighty and Majestic), exalting Him as he exalts Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and this is what no Muslim does, as I believe, then in this case it is disbelief, apostasy. But as I said earlier, this is what I do not believe any individual among the Muslims does. And how many are those who swear by other than Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in the lands of Islam? I do not believe that any of them means to exalt the one by whom he swore by other than Allah (Mighty and Majestic) as he swears by Allah, or that he makes Him greater than Him. I do not believe this. And so we see many of these Muslims who are dominated by this habit, the habit of swearing by fathers, prophets, and messengers, or by a man’s head, or his beard, or his mustache, and the like of these ugly oaths. If it is mentioned to him and he is told, "The Messenger of Allah said such-and-such," he hastens to say, "May Allah reward you with good, and I did not know this," and he seeks forgiveness from Allah. This example is what I want to reach the subject of: one who insults Allah (Mighty and Majestic), or insults His Prophet (peace be upon him), or insults the religion.
The matter returns to the intention, because a person may speak or do an act in a state of intense anger that blinds him from the straight speech that he should speak. So if we hear a person from these, asThe Shaykh : Among them are some fools who curse the Shari'ah, or the religion, or the Lord of Majesty, or His Prophet (peace be upon him), and so on. When they are reminded—and this happens often with them, and with the advisors and those who remind them—they say, "May the curse of Allah be upon Satan; it was a moment of satanic anger." I seek forgiveness from Allah. This indicates something very important that compels us not to rush to issue a ruling of takfir (declaring someone a disbeliever) against him, because he did not intend disbelief. How could he, when he seeks forgiveness from Allah and admits his mistake in what came out of him? But this does not absolve us, nor do we approve of his statement; rather, we condemn it most severely. If there were a judge or ruler ruling by the Shari'ah, we would propose that he be given a discretionary punishment (ta'zir) by being flogged with ten lashes, as mentioned in the well-known hadith of the Messenger (peace be upon him). But, unfortunately, such a ruling does not exist in most of the lands of Islam today. I am sorry. Perhaps this justifies my saying that the absence of such Shari'ah rulings, which the Wise Lawgiver specified the benefit of, as in His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) in the Noble Qur'an: The failure of rulers to implement Shari'ah rulings is one of the reasons why the tongues of these fools run loose with what should not be said and is not permissible by Shari'ah. In summary, takfir is a very difficult matter, as is known among the scholars, and the authentic hadiths in al-Bukhari and others are well known in this regard. However, I would like to mention a branch of this occasion. I would like to mention a jurisprudential branch found in some books of the schools of jurisprudence, which in reality fully corresponds to the fear instilled by those hadiths that warn the Muslim against rushing to declare his Muslim brother a disbeliever, lest he not be a disbeliever and the disbelief return to the one who declared it. They mentioned that if a group of scholars, numbering ninety-nine people, issue a ruling of takfir against a Muslim, but one scholar says, "No, he is not a disbeliever," then the ruling of takfir should not be issued regarding this person as long as there is a scholar who says this is not disbelief. From this, we understand that those who derived this branch considered the danger of issuing a ruling of disbelief against a Muslim man, especially if he is known for his adherence to the pillars of Islam, not just the testimony, but also prayer, fasting, and so on. We often hear of disputes arising between spouses, and the woman comes and asks, "My husband cursed such-and-such. Do you ask if he prays? She says he prays. Does he fast? He fasts, and so on. So how is this? By Allah, I quarreled with him and he shouted and yelled, and so on." So, if this cursing comes from a person in a state of anger, he is ordered to repent, given a discretionary punishment, and flogged, and so on. But if we want to issue a ruling of takfir against him, which entails apostasy, we must retract his admission of what he did. If he admits it, it is apostasy and he is killed, as is known in Islam, based on his saying (peace be upon him): However, if he follows his words with seeking forgiveness and repentance to Allah (Mighty and Majestic), this is evidence that it was an outburst of anger, and we cannot attribute to it what we attribute to words spoken with intent and will. And if the Messenger (peace be upon him) says: And this was not the intention to intend, for example, what he cursed from what was mentioned earlier, then it is not permissible to condemn him for his word as long as his heart contradicts his word. This is my opinion on this matter.