Does the Excuse of Ignorance in Major Shirk and Kufr Mean He Is a Muslim? | Shaykh Salih al Fawzan

2,155 views·May 31, 2026

📌 In this fatwa, Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan is refuting the deceptive claim of the extremist Murji’ah that the difference of opinion regarding the excuse of ignorance relates to the outward ruling of names and labels, thereby affirming Islam for those immersed in shirk and kufr. ⚠️ The actual legitimate 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 Aal al-Shaykh (d. 1319 AH) said: 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❌ According to the Murjiah the ignorant grave worshipper who worships the sun, the moon, al-Lat, al-‘Uzza, and the righteous is still considered a Muslim so long as he pronounces the shahadatayn, even while being ignorant of their meaning and implications and openly immersed in major shirk and manifest kufr This is false. Ignorance, coercion, and mistake are inward matters related to the true reality of a person’s condition and are not conditions for the outward ruling. We are not obligated to know the inward reality of a situation in order to pass the outward ruling, nor is it permissible to assume inward preventives in order to suspend or nullify the outward ruling. That is from the foundations of irja. Moreover, the presence of conditions, the absence of preventives, and the establishment of the proof have nothing to do with the outward ruling of names and labels. Those matters relate to accountability, the application of the hudud, and eternal punishment. To apply the hudud or eternal hellfire, one must combine between outward kufr and inward kufr, just as salvation is not granted until one combines between outward Islam and inward iman. ✅ We only judge by what is outwardly apparent from a person’s statements and actions. As for inward matters, they are left to the Islamic courts before applying legislative punishments, or to Allah before eternal punishment. ⚠️ It is from the disastrous deception of the Murji’ah that they make the conditions required for legislative punishments into conditions for the outward rulings upon individuals. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✍ 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. ✍️ 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. “Whoev