Is the One Who Commits Shirk Out of Ignorance a Muslim or a Mushrik? | Imam Ibn Baz

3,259 views·Jul 11, 2026

📌 In this video, Imam Ibn Baz decisively destroys the aqeedah of the extremist Murjiah who fight tooth and nail for the belief: “The action is shirk, but the individual is a Muslim.” ⚠️ There are extremist Murjiah today who have innovated the claim that if a person merely utters the shahadatayn while being ignorant of its meaning, implications and committing major shirk, his shahadatayn is still considered valid, he remains a Muslim due to his ignorance of the prohibition of shirk and the obligation of Tawhid! ⚠️ 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. ✍️ Imam Ishaq ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Hasan Al al-Shaykh (d. 1319 AH) أهل الفترة الذين لم تبلغهم الرسالة والقرآن وماتوا على الجاهلية لا يسمون مسلمين بالإجماع ولا يستغفر لهم وإنما اختلف أهل العلم في تعذيبهم في الآخرة "The people of the Fatrah are those whom the message and the Qur’an did not reach and who died upon ignorance. 👉 (❗) They are NOT labeled as Muslims by CONSENSUS. And no one is to seek forgiveness for them. The scholars ONLY differed on whether they will be punished in the Hereafter." 📚 SOURCE: Hukm Takfir al-Muayyan wa al-Farq Bayna Qiyam al-Hujjah wa Fahm al-Hujjah, Page: 9 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Authentic and True — From the Scholars to You ✦ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #Islam #Quran #Sunnah #Aqeedah #Salafi #salafiyyah #Bidah #IslamicAdvice #IslamicReminders #SeekingKnowledge #Tawheed #Muslim #Fiqh #scholars