{"id":1043,"date":"2011-06-09T07:12:54","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T07:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakkah.mryusuf.com\/?p=1043"},"modified":"2018-09-18T11:39:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T11:39:52","slug":"guidelines-texts-severe-punishments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/guidelines-texts-severe-punishments.htm","title":{"rendered":"Guidelines in Understanding Texts that Warn of Severe Punishments"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Name of Allaah, the Most Merciful…<\/em><\/p>\n

This article clarifies the understanding of Ahlus-Sunnah<\/em> regarding important religious texts on the issue of disbelief and the negation of faith, like the following hadeeths:<\/p>\n

1) “Insulting a Muslim is fusooq<\/em> (sinful disobedience), and fighting him is kufr<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

2) “None of you has eemaan<\/em> until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”<\/p>\n

3) “The qattaat<\/em> (tale-carrier) shall not enter Paradise.”<\/p>\n

4) “Whoever deceives us is not from us.”<\/p>\n

And like the\u00a0Quranic verse\u00a0of the murderer (4:93) abiding in the Hellfire, and all other texts threatening of severe punishment for sins that other texts prove do not remove a person from the fold of Islaam.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/strong> Ahlus-Sunnah<\/em> understand these texts in light of the entire body of texts on ‘aqeedah<\/em>, and do not take any one of them alone to build their beliefs upon, as is the way of the deviant sects.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/strong> The texts prove that the sins mentioned above do not take someone outside of Islaam by themselves.<\/p>\n

[3] <\/strong>So kufr<\/em> like in #1 is kufr<\/em> less than the kufr<\/em> that takes someone outside of Islaam.\u00a0 Any sin referred to as kufr<\/em> must be considered at least a major sin.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/strong> The negation of a person’s eemaan<\/em> like in #2 above is a negation of completeness of eemaan<\/em>, not a negation in totality.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/strong> The negation of the qattaat<\/em> entering Paradise in #3 means initially, not that he must remain in the Hellfire forever.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/strong> When the Prophet (sallallaahu<\/em> ‘alayhe wa sallam<\/em>) said about an action, like deception in example #4 above, that the person who does it is not from us, he meant: not adhering to our guidance in the proper way.\u00a0 Thus, deception is a major sin that does not take a person out of Islaam by itself.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/strong> The threat mentioned in the verse of the murderer is of entrance to the Fire, but not eternally, and so on.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/strong> Some scholars allow these texts to apply to certain cases, like when a person deceives the Muslims by pretending to be a Muslim, and inwardly hiding disbelief.\u00a0 In this case, the one who deceives us is not from us, ie. not from the Muslims.\u00a0 Similarly, someone who kills another Muslim, declaring it to be permissible would be in the Fire forever (because he declares halaal<\/em> what Allaah told us is haraam<\/em>, and he would be a disbeliever with this belief before he even killed anyone).\u00a0 However, to restrict the texts to only these meanings would mean that the Muslims do not need to fear the punishments mentioned in the texts, and they would lose their true meanings of tarheeb (scary warnings) for the Muslims, as guidance and warnings for the Muslims, the ones who are concerned with following the texts in the first place.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/strong> Some scholars, like ibn Hajr in Fat-hul-Baaree<\/em> and others refer to a position attributed to some of the early scholars, like Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Sufyaan ath-Thowree: to not explain<\/strong><\/em> these texts and leave them as they are, so that their effects of tarheeb<\/em> (scaring people) from the actions remains fully effective.\u00a0 It is also mentioned that they disliked ta’weel<\/em>, explaining the texts, like kufr doona kufr<\/em>, partial not complete negation of eemaan<\/em>, etc.\u00a0 The following points are vital to understand this point, as it has confused people of late:<\/p>\n

a)<\/strong> The principle of dar’ al-mafaasid<\/em> must be kept in mind.\u00a0 Meaning, no harmful understanding of Islaam should be concluded as a result.\u00a0 Meaning the people who are being addressed are not led into making takfeer<\/em> of other Muslims for example.<\/p>\n

b) <\/strong>This is restricted to admonitions and exhortations, keeping in mind the level of understanding of the audience.<\/p>\n

c)<\/strong> When academically teaching the religious rulings on these actions, the proper breakdown must be given.<\/p>\n

d)<\/strong> No false conclusions may be added when used as an admontion, rather the math-hab of Ahmad and Sufyaan during admonitions was to NOT EXPLAIN THE TEXT<\/strong>, to let it scare the people, keeping to the wording used in the text.\u00a0 (Keep in mind the overlapping that exists between translation and explanation.)<\/p>\n

Scenarios for practical applications of these guidelines:<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong> You are a khateeb<\/em> giving the Friday khutbah<\/em>.\u00a0 Killing is widespread in your area.\u00a0 Some Muslims are even killing each other.\u00a0 So you scream upon the minbar, “Be warned of KUFR, dear Muslims!! Fighting another Muslim is KUFR!\u00a0 The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alayhe wa sallam) said, “Do not turn into kuffaar after me (my death), by striking each other’s necks!!”<\/strong> and so on, without explaining that the meaning is actually a major sin that does not expel a person from Islaam.\u00a0 Again, so long as no mafsadah<\/em> (harm) is involved, this is the way of admonition attributed to some of the Salaf.<\/p>\n

2) <\/strong>You are teaching new Muslims their religion, and they ask you about some of the texts mentioned.\u00a0 You respond by saying, “Killing is kufr<\/em>, the qattaat<\/em> (tale-carrier) will not enter Paradise, the murderer is in the Hellfire… this is what is in the Book and the Sunnah!”<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, there is no distinction between their beliefs and the beliefs of the Khawaarij<\/em>, which is a major mafsadah<\/em> (harm).\u00a0 Based on this, they now pronounce takfeer<\/em> on major sinners, and you are accountable for that because you did not teach them the meanings of the texts in light of the other texts, rather you kept the knowledge of the other texts to yourself and thus misled them.<\/p>\n

“Whoever is asked about something of knowledge and hides it will be made to wear a bridle of Fire on the Day of Standing.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

So how much more obvious would the error be when someone not only mentions the text without explaining it in light of the other texts properly, but mentions the text with a false explanation that aids the beliefs of the Khawaarij<\/em>!!\u00a0 What if it was in an “Islaam 101 type book”<\/em> used in Islaamic Studies classes for English-speaking teenagers?!<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong> You are active in conveying knowledge to non-Arabs and you consider using what has been attributed to Sufyaan and Ahmad as an approach.\u00a0 When reviewing the mafaasid, in light of the idea of your audience not having much access to the scholars or their writings, due to a language barrier, and many of them are new Muslims, and thus their level of understanding is basic (most of them), you decide to only mention these texts with their full explanation, fearing the harms that could result in leaving the texts alone, even if it means sacrificing a chance to scare people away from certain sins by mentioning the text of punishment without explaining its full meaning.\u00a0 This is a responsible and mature decision, based on an accepted fiqh<\/em> principle, taqdeem dar’ al-mafaasid<\/em> (giving precedence to keeping harms away over establishing something positive).\u00a0 This is what I would advise all of my brothers involved in da’wah<\/em> with: that they always consider the level of their audience, the least of them in understanding, and speak to them on their levels.<\/p>\n

I pray that these words benefit some of the students and callers to Islaam, and may Allaah guide us all to correct statements and actions.<\/p>\n

Written by: Moosaa Richardson<\/em><\/p>\n

ST Archives:<\/strong> 04-30-2010<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Name of Allaah, the Most Merciful… This article clarifies the understanding of Ahlus-Sunnah regarding important religious texts on the issue of disbelief and the negation of faith, like the following hadeeths: 1) “Insulting a Muslim is fusooq (sinful … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,112,64,54],"tags":[102,101,100,103],"class_list":["post-1043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aqeedah-manhaj","category-eemaan-kufr","category-original-articles","category-st-archives","tag-apostacy","tag-kufr","tag-suicide","tag-takfeer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5415,"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions\/5415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bakkah.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}