Ruling on One Who Commits Shirk Out of Ignorance in a Remote Land | Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan

4,109 views·May 6, 2026

📌 In this video, Shaykh Dr. Salih al Fawzan clarifies the ruling on an ignorant person who commits shirk while living outside Saudi Arabia. ⚠️ The excuse of ignorance has nothing to do with outward labels or legislative names. Ignorance is an inward matter that may prevent punishment. It is only considered in matters of legal accountability, not when ruling based on what is apparent from a person’s actions and statements. We judge by what is apparent. The dispute regarding the excuse of ignorance is whether a person is from Ahl al-Fatrah or Ahl al-Nar, not whether he is a Muslim or a mushrik. ✅ We rule by what is outwardly apparent. ❌ Suspending the outward ruling based on assumed inward factors, or making the absence of those inward preventers a condition before applying the outward ruling, is an innovation of the Murjiah. They use this principle to falsely affirm Islam for those who openly commit shirk and kufr. ❌ Likewise, claiming that merely uttering the shahadatayn is sufficient for salvation, even while a person is ignorant of Tawhid, ignorant of the prohibition of shirk, and falls into acts of shirk, is the madhhab of the extremist Karramiyyah Murjiah. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ 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 b