What is the criterion for identifying the people of the period of ignorance?

The questioner : Our teacher, another question if you please. The issue of the people of the period of ignorance: is it possible to determine exactly who they are? And the issue of the verses that indicate that there was no nation in which Allah did not send a prophet, and so on. How do we reconcile these matters so that we know whether the people before the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) are included among the people of the period of ignorance or not? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : Do you mean by the people of the period of ignorance that they are not individuals, but rather a group?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Do you perhaps mean this?

The questioner : That is the point, meaning...

The Shaykh : So that you do not deviate from the answer, either you mean individuals, which I find unlikely on your part, or you mean a group, a nation, or a specific era. What do you mean?

The questioner : The truth is, my question is broader. It may be a group, but I mean a nation, a nation, no, rather it may be a group and it may be individuals.

The Shaykh : Very good. Now, in the present age, the age of civilization and knowledge, and what Allah wills, do you believe that it is possible for an individual among these millions of civilized humans to be among the people of the period of ignorance, or not?

The questioner : By Allah, in my opinion, no. But some people who...

The Shaykh : Leave the people alone. I am now speaking between you and me.

The questioner : In my opinion...

The Shaykh : Why do you want to get yourself involved in the people's dispute? Heh.

The questioner : No, they are the ones...

The Shaykh : My brother, come on, walk with me.

The questioner : The answer is no.

The Shaykh : How not? What do you mean, so that we understand what the negation is?

The questioner : The negation is that in this civilization we live in, it is inconceivable that the name of Islam has not reached the people in its general entirety.
Al-Halabi : It looks like...

The Shaykh : No, it doesn't look like you ruined it, because we are now talking about the individual. The question of the individual: you are saying the group. Now, if there are millions of individual humans who have entered the age of accountability, the question was: do you not think that an individual from these millions could be among the people of the period of ignorance?

The questioner : Yes, it is possible.

The Shaykh : This contradicts what you said earlier.

The questioner : It is permissible, meaning I misunderstood you.

The Shaykh : No harm, may Allah forgive what has passed.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah.

The Shaykh : So now, is it possible to imagine the existence of a person among these millions of civilized humans who is among the people of the period of ignorance? If we placed a dot before the one, would the matter change for you?

The questioner : No

The Shaykh : A dot on the right, not on the left.

The questioner : No, the answer is...

The Shaykh : What is the number now?

The questioner: Ten

The Shaykh : Ten, a second dot and a dot. Would the answer change?

The questioner : The truth is, the difficulty I have, my teacher...

The Shaykh : No, the speech is mine, not yours.

The questioner : What is it? You are the one answering.

The Shaykh : Yes, what do I want? To correct your mistake or to save you? Heh. Why are you afraid? No harm. It is our custom in Syria to have a kind word. If it does not come with you, come with it. So I see that you did not walk with me.

The questioner : Take me with you, teacher.

The Shaykh : I will walk with you. We will return to the first person, for whom you made the answer easy, that he might exist.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Why?

The questioner : Meaning we exclude the possibility that the call did not reach him?

The Shaykh : No, I am asking you for the reason.

The questioner : It may be due to his own negligence.

The Shaykh : No, no, do not get into the details, my brother. You know what the second question is.

The questioner : Which is the reason for his being among the people of the period of ignorance?

The Shaykh: Yes

The questioner : It is the reason why the call did not reach him.

The Shaykh : Good. Can this reason be repeated?

The questioner : The answer is yes.

The Shaykh : So it is possible for us to have a dot before the one.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : It becomes ten?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : And a dot.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Although I am still at my position, but changing the phrasing: in our age, why did you specify our age for the existence of these means that bring the far near?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Which have almost made the whole earth like a small village because of the means that Allah created and made easy for humans. So what is your opinion before the age of knowledge and culture, and so on? Let us return to the age of the first ignorance. Could there be such people?

The questioner : Definitely.

The Shaykh : Those to whom the call did not reach?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Good. And before we proceed in the speech, are we agreed that the people of the period of ignorance, whether an individual, ten, or more, are those to whom the call did not reach? Are we agreed on this?

The questioner : We are agreed, but I want to make the question broader. What is meant by the call?

The Shaykh : May Allah preserve us from the word, but this...

The questioner : Meaning, does the call of a prophet before us apply to him, or must it be the call of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for us to consider him among the people of the period of ignorance?

The Shaykh : You have returned to the present age.

The questioner : No, no, for example, so that we include in our question what was before the Prophet, when you mentioned the ignorance just now.

The Shaykh : Yes, my question is about the ignorance.

The questioner : Yes, it was before him.

The Shaykh : What is the connection between the ignorance and the Prophet? The Prophet came after the ignorance.

The questioner : Yes, before.

The Shaykh : Good. What is the answer now? I repeat the question. If we go back before the mission of the Messenger (peace be upon him), could there be people of the period of ignorance?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : It is possible, and so on, and so on, you go back, meaning...

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Like that, up to the time of Adam (peace be upon him). We clearly imagine that Adam (peace be upon him) was a prophet to his children. And when his children multiplied and intermarried, such that it is conceivable that there could be an individual or more than one individual to whom the call of Adam (peace be upon him) did not reach.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : But the later the time, the more the offspring of the children of Adam multiplied, correct?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Good. So now, I think, or it seems to me, that I have answered your question in a question-and-answer manner.

The questioner : Yes, teacher, but a question arises in my mind. I have burdened you, my teacher, with the issue that, for example, before the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), some hadiths came that clarify, like 'Umar ibn Luhayy dragging his reed in the Fire, like the hadith , like the hadith , and so on. How do we understand this now, like 'Umar ibn Luhayy's entry into the Fire, or that "your father and my father are in the Fire"? Here is the difficulty that came to my mind. Do we consider them people of the period of ignorance? If we consider them people of the period of ignorance, why were they tormented? This is what I am inquiring about.

The Shaykh : You agreed with me that the people of the period of ignorance are those to whom the call did not reach.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Good. Do you not associate in your mind and in your belief that everyone who is among the people of the period of ignorance is not tormented in the Fire?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Good. So whenever a text comes to you about a person that he is tormented in the Fire, you must remove from your mind that this person is among the people of the period of ignorance.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : You must remove from your mind that this person is among the people of the period of ignorance.

The questioner : Good.

The Shaykh : Because Allah says in the clear Qur'an: So if the statement of the Messenger about any person is that he is in the Fire, it is equivalent to the call having reached him and he disbelieved in it, so he is in the Fire. The matter is very clear.

The questioner : Meaning the exception is for individuals and not for the group?

The Shaykh : The exception is for individuals in terms of the report about them, and not from the general report that divides, for example, every century, or every group, or every nation, saying these are to Paradise and I do not care, and these are to the Fire and I do not care. We do not have this division.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh: Is it clear?

The questioner : Clear.

The Shaykh : But here is the point I thought you would gradually arrive at, given its importance. We can now imagine people to whom the Islamic call has reached, and yet I say that the Islamic call has not truly reached them. What I mean is that we must keep in mind that we cannot say the call has reached any individual, sect, or group unless it has reached them pure, fresh, and tender, exactly as it was revealed. This is difficult in many places, because you know today that there are sects that claim Islam and call to Islam, yet they are either as innocent of Islam as the wolf is of the son of Jacob, as the old Arabic proverb says, or they have strayed far from a large part of Islam, even though they are still considered within the circle of Islam. The most misguided of these sects are the Bahai, followed by the Qadiani. The Qadiani are more harmful to the community of the call, as scholars say, and I do not mean just the Muslim community, but the nations that are currently obligated to respond to the call of truth. These Bahai are the most harmful because they have uprooted Islam completely and left nothing of it intact. As for the Qadiani, they fast, they perform Hajj, they pray, and they do everything just like the people of the Sunnah and the community, but they hold beliefs that have taken them out of the circle of Islam. They are apostates from their religion, but they are dangerous from this angle: they claim, "We are Muslims just like you, and the only difference between us and you is that you have misunderstood the texts in our view, while we believe we are correct in what we hold." The activity of the Qadiani is the most widespread in the world today, and they are the most influential of the misguided sects on people. That is why you find Qadiani Muslims in Germany, in France, and in Britain. I personally saw a mosque in Britain with very large letters on it saying, "There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah," and I said, "This is hypocrisy on your part, because you should say, 'And Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is the Prophet of Allah,' just as the Shi'ah say, 'And Ali is the close friend of Allah' in their call to prayer." So these people, if the expression is correct, are not people to whom we can say the call of Islam has reached them. Rather, they are still among the people of the period of ignorance (ahl al-fatra), because the call of Islam has not reached them in the correct manner.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And for this reason, I remember clearly when we were appointed to teach at your university, and when its doors opened for teaching, we were in an evening gathering like this one with a group of university professors. This point was raised, and one of them claimed, in surprise, saying, "No, my brother, Islam has reached the East and the West. Every morning and evening, there is a broadcast of the Noble Qur'an." I said to him, "O Shaykh, this Noble Qur'an that was revealed in a clear Arabic language—the people of Arabness today, and those who claim Arabness, do not understand much of the words of the Noble Qur'an. So what do we say about the non-Arabs who hear these broadcasts of the recitation of the Qur'an and barely understand anything of it? This does not mean that the call has reached them. Therefore, this condition must be noted, for it is very necessary."

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And you as well.

Another questioner : I would like to listen to your speech, meaning

The Shaykh : And others would also like to listen to your speeches