The False Distinction Between Kafir Asli and One Claiming Islam | Shaykh Salih al-Fawzan

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📌 In this important fatwa, Shaykh Salih al Fawzan refutes a common doubt used by the Murjiah to affirm Islam for those who commit major shirk and major kufr. They do so by claiming there is a distinction between the kafir asli and one who ascribes himself to Islam but falls into major shirk. 🚨 The Murjiah make two claims: 1️⃣ They differentiate between the kafir asli and those who claim Islam, yet commit major shirk. 2️⃣ They claim that the principle, "Whoever does not declare the mushrikin to be kuffar is himself a kafir," applies only to making takfir of the kuffar asli, such as the Jews and Christians, and not to those who commit shirk and kufr while claiming to be Muslims. ❌ Both of these claims are false, innovated, and are among the means the Murjiah use to confuse the common people into affirming Islam for those who commit clear acts and utter clear statements of shirk and kufr. ✅ The Shaykh refutes this claim, explaining that there is no such distinction. Rather, whoever commits shirk is a mushrik, whether he is from the People of the Book or from this Ummah. 📖 This concise answer establishes the principle that the ruling of shirk is based upon the occurrence of shirk itself, regardless of the nation or community to which a person belongs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ The Murjiah conflate the outward ruling with the inward ruling. 1. 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. 2. 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 error of the contemporary Murji: 1. They do not differentiate between the legislative names and the legislative rulings. - legislative names are based on what is outward from statements and actions, whereas legislative rulings relate to both the outward and the inward. 2. They make establishing the proof a condition for applying the legislative outward name, when in reality it is only a condition for applying the legislative 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 only on what is apparent from statements and actions. As for matters of the heart, they are only considered in punishment and 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Authentic and True — Fr