Can You Pray Behind an Imam Who Believes the Prophet Knows the Unseen? | Shaykh Salih al Fawzan

2,443 views·Jul 13, 2026

📌 In this important fatwa, Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan answers a question regarding the ruling on praying behind an imam who believes that the Prophet ﷺ knows the unseen and can be in every place whenever he wishes. The Shaykh explains that it is not permissible to pray behind such a person because the one who holds this belief is a kafir due to the belief itself, not only after denial which is when the proof has been established and he persists on that belief. Restricting takfir to denial is the madhhab of the extremist Murjiah. Ahl al-Sunnah believe that iman consists of statements, actions, and beliefs. Therefore, if a nullifier is present in any one of these, it removes a person from Islam. The Shaykh further explains that knowledge of the unseen belongs exclusively to Allah and that the Messenger ﷺ did not know anything of the unseen except what Allah revealed to him. He also clarifies the ruling on anyone who claims that someone besides Allah possesses knowledge of the unseen. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ The Murji'ah falsely conflate the outward rulings pertaining to legislative names and labels with the inward rulings pertaining to legislative punishments. - 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. ✍️ 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 #Hadith #Tawheed #Aqeedah #Salafi #Salafiyyah #AhlusSunnah #AhlusSunnahWalJamaah #ManhajSalaf #IslamicCreed #UsulAlDeen #KitabAlTawhid #Fiqh #Shariah #SeekingKnowledge #SeekKnowledge #Ilm #Dawah #SalafiDawah #IslamicAdvice #IslamicReminders #IslamicGuidance #IslamicEducation #IslamicLecture #IslamicClips #IslamicShorts #Reminder #Knowledge #Truth #Guidance #Muslim #MuslimYouth #ScholarsOfIslam #ScholarsOfSunnah #IbnBaz #IbnUthaymeen #ShaykhFawzan #LajnahDaimah #Music #MusicIsHaram #Entertainment #Amusement #Bidah #Shirk #Kufr #Iman #Refutation #Clarification