Is the Muslim excused by ignorance?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : If you please, regarding the matter of being excused by ignorance?
The Shaykh : Being excused by ignorance, my brother, varies. Yesterday someone asked me about it by phone. Being excused by ignorance is sometimes the case and sometimes it is not. There is no difference between the matter being in creed or in the rulings of the Shari'ah. One may be excused in both, or not excused in both, or excused in one but not the other, and so on. The criterion, meaning the cause that necessitates being held accountable or does not necessitate it, is observing whether the person we want to say is excused or not excused lives in a Muslim society where the ruling is known in that society and is widespread and common, yet he has no knowledge of it; in that case, he is not excused. And between another person who lives in a society that is either not purely Islamic, such as the societies of disbelief, or who lives in a society that is Islamic in name only; in that case, he is excused because the proof has not reached him. Do you understand the difference?
The questioner: Yes.
The Shaykh: Okay
The Shaykh : Being excused by ignorance, my brother, varies. Yesterday someone asked me about it by phone. Being excused by ignorance is sometimes the case and sometimes it is not. There is no difference between the matter being in creed or in the rulings of the Shari'ah. One may be excused in both, or not excused in both, or excused in one but not the other, and so on. The criterion, meaning the cause that necessitates being held accountable or does not necessitate it, is observing whether the person we want to say is excused or not excused lives in a Muslim society where the ruling is known in that society and is widespread and common, yet he has no knowledge of it; in that case, he is not excused. And between another person who lives in a society that is either not purely Islamic, such as the societies of disbelief, or who lives in a society that is Islamic in name only; in that case, he is excused because the proof has not reached him. Do you understand the difference?
The questioner: Yes.
The Shaykh: Okay
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.