Practice Islam in the West: What Is Required? | Shaykh Salih al-Usaymi

8,421 views·Apr 28, 2026

📌What is the minimum required to practice Islam in lands of kufr? Is it enough to simply perform the outward pillars like prayer and fasting? Or must a Muslim also make clear the falsehood of shirk and the religion of the mushrikin? Shaykh Salih al Usaymi explains that manifesting the religion is not one-sided. It consists of two essential matters: 1. Openly manifesting the outward actions of Islam 2. Disavowing the religion of the mushrikin The kuffar among whom Muslims live must clearly know that: 1. These Muslims openly practice Islam 2. They hold their religion to be false This understanding was affirmed by major scholars such as: 1. Abdullatif ibn Abdulrahman ibn Hasan Al al Shaykh (d. 1293 AH) 2. Ishaq ibn Abdulrahman Al al Shaykh (d. 1319 AH) 3. Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al al Shaykh (d. 1389 AH) 4. Hamad ibn Atiq (d. 1301 AH) 5. Abdurrahman ibn Nasir al Saadi (d. 1376 AH) This is the reality of manifesting the religion. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ The Murjiah confuse the outward ruling with the inward ruling. - The outward ruling is the worldly judgment based solely on a person’s outward statements and actions. It does not depend on what is in the heart. - The inward ruling concerns the hidden reality of the heart, which cannot be known. It is only considered in matters of punishment and the ruling of the Hereafter. Ignorance, coercion, mistake, and denial are considered here, not in the outward ruling. ✍ The Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fatwas in Saudi Arabia. Fatwah no. 4400: 👉 (❗) "So clarifying the matter and establishing the proof (Iqāmat al-hujjah) is for the purpose of removing any excuse before carrying out the PUNISHMENT upon him, NOT in order for him to be called a kafir only after the clarification. 👉 (❗) Rather, he IS CALLED a kafir based on the outward act he committed. Such as prostrating to other than Allah, vowing as an act of worship to other than Him, or slaughtering an animal, like a sheep, for other than Allah.” 📚 Source:Kitāb Fatāwā al-Lajnah al-Dāʾimah – First Collection, vol. 1, p. 220 https://shamela.ws/book/8381/396#p1 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The methodology of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jamaah: The outward ruling is based exclusively on statements and actions. Matters of the heart are only considered in punishment and the final judgment, in this world by the judge and in the Hereafter by Allah. ✍️ Al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852H) in Fath al-Bari (12/272), transmitting consensus: وكلهم أجمعوا على أن أحكام الدنيا على الظاهر، والله يتولى السرائر “THEY ALL UNANIMOUSLY AGREED that worldly rulings are based upon what is outwardly apparent, while Allah alone takes charge of what lies within.” End Quote ✍️ Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728H) said in As-Sarim al-Maslul (2/339): فمن قال أو فعل ما هو كفر, كفر بذلك، وإن لم يقصد أن يكون كافرًا، إذ لا بقصد الكفر أحدّ إلًّا ما شاء الله. “Whoever says or does that which is kufr, then he becomes a kafir by that itself, even if he did not intend to become a disbeliever, for no one intends kufr except whom Allah wills.” End Quote ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✍ The Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fatwas in Saudi Arabia. Question Three from Fatwa No. 11043 Answer: By this it is known that it is not permissible for a group of the muwahhideen, who hold the disbelief of the grave worshippers, to declare takfir upon their brothers from the muwahhideen who have withheld from declaring their disbelief until the hujjah is established upon them (i.e., established upon those who withhold the ruling). 👉 (❗) This is because their refraining from making takfir of them is due to a shubhah, which is their belief that it is necessary to establish the hujjah upon those grave worshippers before declaring them disbelievers. This is in contrast to those whose kufr carries no ambiguity, such as the Jews, the Christians, the communists, and those like them. There is no shubhah regarding their kufr, nor regarding the kufr of the o