The Excuse of Ignorance: The Action Is Shirk, but the Doer Is a Muslim | Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan

4,298 views·Apr 13, 2026

📌 In this video, the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Salih al Fawzan, clarifies a catastrophic deviation in aqeedah that the extremist Murjiah promote deceptively through the issue of the excuse of ignorance. ⚠️ The Murjiah conceal their misguidance behind this issue by tying the outward ruling to imagined inward preventers. They assume the existence of ignorance and other hidden factors, then use this to suspend the outward ruling and affirm Islam for those who commit clear actions and statements of shirk and kufr. They: 1️⃣. Falsely link inward preventive factors to outward rulings 2️⃣. Assume the existence of inward excuses without proof 3️⃣. Suspend the outward ruling despite clear and certain actions of kufr 4️⃣. They remove actions and statements from iman by conditioning them on inward matters 5️⃣. Claim that establishing the proof relates to names and labels, not accountability and punishment 6️⃣. Affirm Islam for those who do not fulfill the first condition of the shahadatayn: knowledge (al ilm) ❌ And many other forms of misguidance and innovation, all used to affirm Islam for those who commit clear acts of shirk and kufr. (❗) So if they witness an individual calling upon other than Allah, making sujood to other than Allah, insulting Allah and His Messenger, or making statements of clear kufr, they do not affirm his kufr specifically. Instead, they say the action is shirk or kufr, but suspend the ruling upon the individual and continue to affirm his Islam. ⚠️ This is clear misguidance, and kufr. ✅ The ruling regarding the one who commits major shirk is to judge by what is outwardly apparent. As for inward matters, they are for the courts to examine before applying the hudud, or for Allah on the Day of Judgment. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ Establishing the proof has nothing to do with 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: 👉 (❗) This is because the reason for their refraining from declaring those grave-worshippers to be disbelievers It is due to a MISCONCEPTION they hold, namely their belief that it is necessary to establish the proof against those grave worshippers before outwardly judging them to be disbelievers This is unlike those whose disbelie