A talk on the hadith: “No Jew or Christian hears of me and then does not believe in me except that he will enter the Fire.”

The Shaykh : As for the second hadith, it is his saying (peace be upon him), and this is also very important and has a connection to the issue of the people of the period of ignorance (ahl al-fatra), which has naturally had many previous sessions. It is his saying (peace be upon him): So, these are the people who did not hear of the Messenger (peace be upon him) and died as disbelievers, died as polytheists; they are not punished for their shirk (associating partners with Allah) and their misguidance. Rather, I say more than that: look at the understanding of his saying (peace be upon him): “Hears of me” means hears of my reality. Because if we imagine that some Europeans, such as the British and the Germans, and others like them, who were influenced by the call of the Qadiyyaniyyah and believed that there are prophets after the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and that one of them was sent in Qadian, and he was known in his early life as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiyyani, then he changed his name to Ahmad for a known purpose of his own. The point is, these Germans and British who were misled by the name of the call of Islam, believing that Islam establishes the coming of prophets after the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and that this is one of them, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiyyani, and that Islam denies the creation called the jinn, which has the known characteristics in the Book and the Sunnah, and so on. These people, without a doubt, are misguided. But did they truly hear of him (peace be upon him)? The answer is no. So, this hadith gives us, first, that those to whom the call did not reach at all are not punished; they have a known treatment in the expanses of the Day of Resurrection. Second, if the call of Islam reached them in a distorted, altered, or changed form, and they believed in it, they are also not held accountable for it. If one distinguishes between the fundamentals and the branches, that is a deviation from the Book and the Sunnah. Therefore, I say that this righteous brother, if Allah wills, must correct his knowledge, at least in his unjust fatwa. Because if a noble, virtuous scholar is deviated in a matter of creed, such as the names and attributes, or similar matters in which some of the Asha'irah and some of the Maturidiyyah have fallen, it may be due to their ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) and not due to bad intent. So, it is not permissible to utter this statement except with a qualification: that he knew the truth and then deviated from it, so he is such and such. Then, one does not distinguish between one who deviated in the issue of names and attributes, or what relates to creed, and one who deviated in a legal ruling. For example, if one knows that the truth is that the flow of blood does not invalidate the wudu' (ablution for prayer), and he continues to insist stubbornly against the evidence, and so on. And there are many branch issues in which scholars have disagreed, some of which may have a greater corrupting effect on society than some issues that relate only to creed. Do you see that one who denied, like some of the parties currently existing on the Islamic land, denied the punishment of the grave? Do you see that its harm is greater? As for that legal opinion which says that a Muslim girl, when she reaches the age of maturity, is permitted to marry herself without the permission of her guardian, contrary to the hadith—which of the two opinions is more corrupting in society? The first one that denied the punishment of the grave, or this one that denied the condition of the guardian's permission? Without a doubt, this one is more corrupting. But this is called branches, and that is called fundamentals. And this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.