Shaykh Ibn Uthaymin Explains Udhr bil Jahl (The Excuse of Ignorance)

1,978 views·Dec 16, 2025

🎥 In this video, Ibn Uthaymin clarifies what the excuse of ignorance truly means. - He does so by explaining the critical distinction between the outward ruling, which is based on statements and actions, and the inward ruling, which relates to matters of the heart and the reality of a person’s iman. 🫀 Coercion, mistakes, ignorance, misunderstanding, and similar factors all pertain to the inward reality of the heart, what a person truly intended and what he meant. - These considerations have no role whatsoever in the outward ruling. Rather, they are only examined before the application of hudud by an Islamic judge, or by Allah on the Day of Judgment. ⚠️ The Murjiah rush to speak about these issues while failing to understand them properly. - They falsely claim that the outward ruling depends on inward matters of the heart, such as denial or rejection, which is a horrible mistake and misconception. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The outward ruling is based solely on statements and actions, by ijma. ❗ 1. IJMAH ❗ ✍ Al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852H) transmits consensus on this matter: 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." 📚Fath al-Bari (12/272) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❗ 2. Authentic Hadith + Commentary ❗ ✍ The Prophet ﷺ said: إني لم أُومَرْ أن أنقِّبَ عن قلوب الناس، ولا أشُقَّ بطونهم “I was not commanded to search into the hearts of people, nor to split open their bellies.” 📚 Reported by Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. ✍ Al-Hafidh al-Nawawi said in his commentary on this hadith, “I was not commanded to search into the hearts of people”: قال النووي تكلّهُ في شرح حديث: ((إني لم أؤمر أن أنقب عن قلوب الناس)) معناه إني أُمِرْتُ أن أحكم بالظاهر، والله يتولى السرائر “Its meaning is that I was commanded to judge according to what is outwardly apparent, and Allah is the One who takes charge of what is hidden within.” 📚 Sharh Sahih Muslim (1/180). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❗ 3. Statements of the Salaf ❗ ✍ Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “إنَّما كُنَّا نُؤاخِذُكم بالوحي، فمَن أظهَر لنا خيرًا أمِنّاهُ وقرَّبْناه، وليس إلينا مِن سريرته شيءٌ، الله يُحاسِبُه في سريرته، ومَن أظهَر لنا سوءًا لم نأمَنْه ولم نُصدِّقه، وإن قال إنَّ سريرتَه حسَنةٌ.” "“We used to only hold people accountable based revelation. But now, whoever outwardly shows us good, we trusted him and drew him close, and we had no concern with what was hidden within him. Allah will take him to account for his inner reality. And whoever outwardly showed us evil, we did not trust him nor believe him, even if he claimed that his inner reality was good." END QUOTE 📚 Reported by Ibn Abi Shaybah in al-Musannaf (7/182). 📚 Mentioned by Ibn Kathir in al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah (8/158). 📚 Reported by al-Bayhaqi in al-Sunan al-Kubra (10/198). ✍ Imam al-Shafi‘i said (رحمه الله): من حكم على الناس بخلاف ما ظهر عليهم استدلالًا على أن ما أظهروا يحتمل غير ما أظهروا بدلالة منهم أو غير دلالة لم يسلم عندي من خلاف التنزيل والسنة Whoever judges people contrary to what is outwardly apparent from them, claiming that what they outwardly show could possibly mean something else, whether he relies on some indication from them or on no indication at all, with me such a person is not free from being in opposition to the Qur’an and the Sunnah.” 📚al-Umm (9/65). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❗ 4. Statements of the Imams of Sunnah ❗ ✍️ Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728H) said in As-Sārim al-Maslūl (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.” ✍️ Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728H) also said in Majmu al-Fatawa (7/557): “We know that whoev