What Knowledge Is Obligatory for Every Muslim? | Shaykh Salih Al-Fawzan

3,256 views·Apr 19, 2026

📌 The Obligation to Learn Islam. In this powerful clarification, Shaykh Dr. Salih Al-Fawzan explains that ignorance in the core acts of worship and beliefs is not an excuse for a Muslim. ⚠️ A person is taken to account, and his ṣalāh may even be invalid if it is built upon ignorance of its pillars, conditions, and obligations. ⚠️ The Shaykh makes it clear: - learning the essentials of the religion is not optional it is obligatory upon every Muslim. This includes what allows a person to properly practice his dīn, such as: - his ʿaqīdah, - his ṣalāh, - his ṣawm, - his zakāh, - his ḥajj. (❗) These are from the necessary matters of knowledge that no one is excused for neglecting or remaining ignorant of. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ 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 disbeliever only after the clarification.Rather, he IS CALLED a disbeliever 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...” End Quote 📚 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 one who does not declare them disbelievers. 📚 SOURCE: Fatwas of the Permanent Committee - First Collection Vol. 1, p. 99. https://shamela.ws/book/8381/1243#p1 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Authentic and True —