Question and Answer

The practice of declaring people unbelievers (takfir) or sinners (tafsiq), which has been prevalent among Muslims for centuries, is completely false and has no connection with the Shariah. This practice emerged during the Abbasid period and continued under the label of “deviant sects,” until such verdicts threatened to declare no one in the Muslim ummah a believer. Eventually, scholars collectively decided to end this practice. With consensus, they declared: We do not declare anyone from among the people of the qiblah to be an unbeliever—that is, those who face the qiblah in prayer will not be called unbelievers by human decree. This is the correct position. In the generations acknowledged for their goodness, such takfiri pursuits are absent. The practice was introduced by theologians in ancient Iraq during the Abbasid era, but later scholars rejected it unanimously. No sect will ever pray facing a temple or a church instead of the Kabah; over the past thousand years, no sect has done so. Therefore, the statement effectively means that anyone who calls himself a Muslim is regarded as such. The prohibition of takfir (declaring a Muslim to be a disbeliever or kafir) and tafsiq (declaring a Muslim to be sinful or morally corrupt) does not mean people should become inactive or neutral in the face of wrongdoing. Rather, it means showing the correct direction of