Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “Nay, but he who has earned evil and his sin has encompassed him, those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein forever.”

The questioner : ... The occasion arose for us to ask him. His position was... We were in a recitation lesson, myself and Tahir al-Kafuri, and we read the verses that appeared at the beginning of Surat al-Baqarah concerning the Children of Israel So now I found two occasions to ask this question, and therefore it is appropriate that we recall the two occasions. The first occasion is when we said that one of the Muslims says, “There is no god but Allah,” and the important thing is my heart, and it does not harm people, and so on. So is the verse that says:

The Shaykh : May Allah have mercy on you. Yes.

The questioner : Then the other matter... The other occasion is that the Muslims say, “No, this came regarding the Children of Israel, but we also know that the Qur'an is taken in its generality in many of its cases, and in certain verses it is specific to its occasion. So if a Muslim says, “My brother, Allah said: Where is the position of this man? He tells you, “Yes, we are correct that Allah punishes us for the thing we did, but in the end we will enter Paradise.” Of course, Allah knows the extent of his punishment. Now, here comes the other verse: The answer is for the Children of Israel...

The Shaykh : A response to them.

The questioner : Here the evil is taken in isolation and it did not say that he is punished only with this sin or with this transgression that he was persisting in. Do we need detail and explanation?

The Shaykh : Before this verse I do not know what the relationship of this verse is to the question regarding those whom you described as saying, “We testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and that one day they will be saved.” Is there a problem with this verse or this statement?

The questioner : No, no, absolutely not.

The Shaykh : Okay, why was it mentioned now?

The questioner : It was mentioned... Now we are under the idea that the narration is not the second verse which was generalizing even to the Muslims...

The Shaykh : Which verse do you mean, the first one? The first one, this one.

The questioner : The first one.

The Shaykh : No problem. Okay, my question is: why did we mention the verse to its end, and the young men who argue with it? Why was it mentioned?

The questioner : It was mentioned because this understanding of the first verse is that no... The one who persists in one sin and it encompasses him, he is from the companions of the Fire, he is eternal in it, and his end is not like the second verse, meaning he is tormented and then it ends?

The Shaykh : Okay, so I understand that if the other verse had not been mentioned and the statement of those who say, “We do not lose anything,” had not been mentioned. If the other verse had not been mentioned and those who argue with it that they will be tormented but one day they will come out because they testify that there is no god but Allah, then what I understand in the end is that there is an error in understanding the first verse, and that is interpreting the evil as any evil. And the cause of the error is negligence regarding the complete verse that explains the evil. So the intended meaning here of the evil is exactly what agrees with the second verse. The evil here is major shirk (associating partners with Allah), and therefore he expressed it with “and his sin has encompassed him.” And a person’s sin does not encompass him except the greatest of the major sins, which is associating partners with Allah (Mighty and Majestic).

The questioner : This is the understanding we want, because this verse was not the first time we spoke about it, because the previous understanding we had was that the sin is one and not shirk...

The Shaykh : It is one sin, but it is the greatest sin!
Al-Halabi : This is one of the proofs of the group of takfir (declaring someone a disbeliever) and hijrah (emigration) for declaring Muslims disbelievers for the slightest sin...

The Shaykh : Like this?
Al-Halabi : Yes, this is one of their strongest proofs!

Another questioner : Nafi' read it in the plural

The Shaykh : May Allah increase you in knowledge.

The questioner : We truly do not dare to issue a fatwa (scholarly legal ruling). We learned from you, meaning even eternity has two meanings...

The Shaykh : Yes, exactly.

The questioner : The eternal meaning and the meaning...

The Shaykh : And that is correct.

The questioner : And therefore reconciliation is possible from this angle...

The Shaykh : And it is so, but when they came to “abiding therein forever,” it was not like that, was it? Yes.

Another questioner : O our Shaykh, they directed the singular reading, as you mentioned, to be shirk (associating partners with Allah), because shirk equals all sins, so the encompassing of shirk is greater than the encompassing of sins. And they directed the plural reading to be all sins, along with shirk.

Another questioner : ... The same topic, the killer and these others, that they will go to the Fire of Hell, abiding therein forever. So a fitnah (trial, discord or temptation) arose on this topic, I think?

The Shaykh : What topic...

Another questioner : The great fitnah!

The Shaykh : The great fitnah?

Another questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : What fitnah?

Another questioner : The fitnah regarding the Khawarij (an early sect that declared sinners disbelievers)...

The Shaykh : Ah, yes...

Another questioner : ... The one who commits a major sin is a disbeliever, and the Mu'tazilah (a rationalist theological sect)...

The Shaykh : Ah, these are the Khawarij Ibadis. What do you want? Excuse me, there is a question here. The answer is known, I think you have, if Allah wills, that the legal rulings are not taken from a single text. And after the second verse it refuted all the doubts of the Mu'tazilah and the Khawarij and all the misguided sects. All that is required is that shirk or disbelief be divided, because we finally knew that they mean the same thing legally. Dividing disbelief into two categories: doctrinal disbelief and practical disbelief. And any Muslim who commits a sin, whatever the nature of this sin, small or large, his committing it is either accompanied by a heart that admits its wrongness or by permitting his sin. If it is the former, it is a sin that is not shirk, which Allah does not forgive. And if it is the latter, it is shirk, which Allah does not forgive. Therefore, arguing with verses about the eternal abiding of the killers in the Fire does not benefit them in two ways. This sin is included in the saying of Allah the Exalted: So they will abide in the Fire what they deserve, except that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) forgives them. Or the killing is accompanied by heart-based permission, as some ignorant people say today when they mention some of the prohibitions, and it becomes part of their saying: “No halal, no haram.” Or as some ignorant people say when advising to stop smoking, you tell him: “It is forbidden, my brother, and this is its evidence, such and such.” In the end, with complete coldness, he tells you: “My brother, if it was forbidden, we burned, and if it was lawful, we drank it.” This is a very serious matter. Therefore, there is no doubt in these verses that contradicts the principle of the verse let alone the mutawatir (mass-transmitted) hadiths from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that explicitly state that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) will take out of the Fire whoever has in his heart the weight of a grain of faith, the weight of a grain of faith. And therefore, there is no problem...

Another questioner : We saw it on the television...

The Shaykh : My name is a compound name so that it is not understood that Nasser al-Din is my father's name. So I am Muhammad Nasser al-Din ibn al-Hajj Noah.

Another questioner : Ibn al-Hajj Noah...

The Shaykh : Yes, and the kunya (patronymic) as you know is Abu 'Abd al-Rahman, and the lineage is al-Baladi al-Albani. And as our brothers said, a student of knowledge, and as in another narration, Abu al-'Abdalah...
Abu Layla : We recorded you, O Shaykh, we have...
Al-Halabi : It is not permissible to record the shaykhs...
Abu Malik: How did you record him?
Abu Layla : We married him off from this country!