Is it permissible to greet the Shi'ah and sit with them?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : May Allah reward you: I work in a place where there are many Shi'ah among us.
The Shaykh : Yes?
The questioner : There are many Shi'ah in my workplace, so is it permissible to greet them and sit with them?
The Shaykh : I see that we should treat them exactly as they treat us, because it is not just for a person to treat you in a certain way and for you to treat him worse than he treats you. Even the People of the Book, whether Jews or Christians, if they greet us, it is obligatory for us to return their greeting. Even if a Jew or a Christian says to you, "Peace be upon you," say, "Peace be upon you." This is because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: This implies that if they say, "Peace," we say, "Peace be upon you." Because if we assume they said, "Death be upon you" in explicit terms, we would say, "And upon you." What does "And upon you" mean? You answer, my brother? A Jew or a Christian says to you, "Peace be upon you," and you say, "And upon you." What is the meaning? "And upon you is peace." That is it. So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded us to return the greeting of the People of the Book by saying, "And upon you," because they say, "Death be upon you." So we say, "And upon you." Look, the etiquette of Islam is high, meaning we do not say, "And upon you is death," we say, "And upon you." Do you understand? So that we are better than them in our response, because there is a difference between saying, "And upon you," and saying, "And upon you is death." The latter is more severe.
The questioner : Do we greet them?
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Is it permissible to greet the Shi'ah?
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : We greet them.
The Shaykh : Do they initiate the greeting or not?
The questioner : They initiate it.
The Shaykh : They initiate the greeting. Greet them with what they treat you with. Then know, my brother, that the Shi'ah are not all the same; they are not all disbelievers. They differ greatly, with many sects. Refer to the book *Al-Milal wa al-Nihal* and you will find the sects. Also, some of them are purely common people who do not know the truth; they are misguided. Perhaps if you called them with the least phrase, they would respond to you, or at least they would doubt what they are upon of falsehood. And with much practice, they return to the truth. And praise be to Allah, now much of what we have heard is that many of them have left this false school of thought and returned to the truth.
The questioner : Visiting them, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Yes, the one after it.
The Shaykh : Yes?
The questioner : There are many Shi'ah in my workplace, so is it permissible to greet them and sit with them?
The Shaykh : I see that we should treat them exactly as they treat us, because it is not just for a person to treat you in a certain way and for you to treat him worse than he treats you. Even the People of the Book, whether Jews or Christians, if they greet us, it is obligatory for us to return their greeting. Even if a Jew or a Christian says to you, "Peace be upon you," say, "Peace be upon you." This is because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
If the People of the Book greet you, they say, "Death be upon you," so say, "And upon you."
إن أهل الكتاب إذا سلموا عليكم يقولون : السام عليكم فقولوا : وعليكمThe questioner : Do we greet them?
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Is it permissible to greet the Shi'ah?
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : We greet them.
The Shaykh : Do they initiate the greeting or not?
The questioner : They initiate it.
The Shaykh : They initiate the greeting. Greet them with what they treat you with. Then know, my brother, that the Shi'ah are not all the same; they are not all disbelievers. They differ greatly, with many sects. Refer to the book *Al-Milal wa al-Nihal* and you will find the sects. Also, some of them are purely common people who do not know the truth; they are misguided. Perhaps if you called them with the least phrase, they would respond to you, or at least they would doubt what they are upon of falsehood. And with much practice, they return to the truth. And praise be to Allah, now much of what we have heard is that many of them have left this false school of thought and returned to the truth.
The questioner : Visiting them, O Shaykh?
The Shaykh : Yes, the one after it.