Praise be to God, and blessings and peace upon the Messenger of God, his family, his Companions, and those loyal to him.
To proceed: Much debate has arisen recently about seeking mercy and forgiveness for a deceased unbeliever. Examining the writings of those who permit this reveals several groups, each with its own motives for justifying the practice.
One group is motivated by ignorance of the actual religious ruling. They are the smallest, weakest, and least dangerous group, because the texts of the Book and Sunnah and the consensus of the religion’s scholars are so numerous and strong that ignorance leaves little room except through extreme heedlessness and still greater neglect of reflecting on God’s and His Messenger’s words. Muslims recite the Qur’an’s first chapter, al-Fatihah, many times in obligatory prayers, saying in each unit: {Guide us to the straight path (6), the path of those You have favoured, not those who have incurred wrath or gone astray (7)}. Everyone outside the believers is known to belong to those under wrath or astray, foremost among them Jews and Christians. If seeking mercy and forgiveness for them were permissible and beneficial, what point would there be in describing them as under wrath and astray if their condition resembled Muslims’: some entering Paradise, some being punished, and all under God’s mercy and will on Resurrection Day? This is in the Qur’an’s first chapter; consider the many other verses and texts explaining plainly that an unbeliever receives neither mercy nor forgiveness in the Hereafter: {Those who disbelieve in God’s signs and meeting Him have despaired of My mercy, and theirs is a painful punishment (23)} [al-Ankabut].
The second group consists of secularists, their liberal offspring, and those who outwardly wear Islam’s guise while serving liberal thought by Islamising, justifying, and promoting it among Muslims. Seeking mercy and forgiveness for unbelievers lies at the heart of their call to dilute religions, unify and mix them, even at the expense of their foundations and creeds. They make absolutely no distinction between believer and unbeliever, and do not even allow Jews and Christians to be called unbelievers, though God explicitly declared their unbelief in His Book. There is no need to discuss them here; their position is exposed.
The third group consists of movement preachers, followers of political Islamic groups and those influenced by them. They are most harmful because many people do not see their real problem. They depict the issue as a jurisprudential disagreement involving investigation and evidence, though they know the decisive texts and twist them. Some therefore ask what motivates their desperate campaign to distort the texts’ meaning in this dangerous matter.
It is necessary to uncover the motive and foundation from which movement activists justify seeking forgiveness and mercy for an unbeliever despite knowing the decisive texts and transmitted consensus prohibiting it.
I say: Their problem lies in their understanding of religion’s reality and objectives. Religion has foundations and objectives, and subordinate branches serving those foundations. Any disorder in arranging these foundations and branches damages a Muslim’s orientations, actions, and purposes. Seeking mercy and forgiveness for an unbeliever is merely a branch and fruit of a flawed conception of religion’s objectives and creation’s purpose.
Movement activists understand religion and creation’s purpose through the political and utilitarian interpretation of religion. The utilitarian interpretation explains Islam through the beneficial effects and spiritual and material fruits of the worship, transactions, ethics, and conduct prescribed by Islamic law. It locates religion’s purpose in the utility resulting from its application and regards pure acts of worship devoted to God, such as prayer and fasting, as means and tools to achieve that purpose. It therefore emphasises their psychological, health, and social benefits and makes these central to the wisdom and objectives of legislation. The political interpretation of Islam, meanwhile, makes creeds, acts of worship, and all Islamic prescriptions means and causes for establishing a political order that achieves material justice and worldly happiness among humans. See Introduction to the Interpretation of Islam, pp. 72-73.
Both interpretations thus disorder religion’s foundations and branches and confuse its ends with its means. Instead of affirming God’s oneness and worshipping Him being the highest purpose and noblest goal, as expressed in {I created jinn and humans only to worship Me (56)} [al-Dhariyat], psychological, social, and political benefits become the objective to pursue. Affirming God’s oneness and worship then become a subsidiary branch and means serving this foundation.
It is therefore unsurprising that someone who understands and interprets religion this way permits seeking mercy and forgiveness for unbelievers who apparently rendered useful services to Muslims or their causes and rights. For these people, the oneness of God and worship devoted exclusively to Him, for which creation was made, are no longer the foundation against which every person’s deeds must be measured. As long as an unbeliever lived and struggled to establish justice, defend the oppressed, confront oppressors, and spread equality and good character, everything else remains a subsidiary matter encompassed by forgiveness and mercy.
Thus the leader of this group, Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, wrote on his official Twitter account on 22 October 2018:
“The creed of God’s oneness is, in reality, nothing but a revolution to achieve freedom, equality, and brotherhood for humanity, so people do not take one another as lords besides God and human enslavement to humans is abolished.”
If this is the reality of that creed for him, it is unsurprising that he sought mercy for Pope Paul II in 2005.
You therefore find no concern among them for inviting non-Muslims to Islam. Whatever interest they show in some is merely a movement manoeuvre to win votes and implement their intellectual project by establishing what they call divine government, whose foundations do not include spreading God’s oneness or combating association and innovations.
Professor Wahid al-Din Khan (d. 2020), may God have mercy on him, explained this interpretation’s harm to non-Muslims: depriving them of the invitation and warning about the danger awaiting them in the Hereafter, since that is not on the agenda of those who understand religion this way. Discussing the Islamic Group, of which he had been a member before leaving, he said:
“This is the situation of non-Muslims who have not yet embraced Islam. Our relationship with them should be one of bearing witness, warning them of the danger of Resurrection Day of which they are heedless, and acting like the ‘naked warner’ of the coming danger on that day. But if the objective is power, we do not worry about saving them from the Day of Meeting… Their original standing has been lost from this interpretation’s perspective. Instead of thinking of saving them from the Fire, they think of attracting them to reinforce their votes against others… Instead of our warning non-Muslims of the Day of Meeting, which is our responsibility, this interpretation makes them a means of attracting crowds, as though our duty towards them were to make them agree with us until they reach the ballot boxes, because that suffices for a just revolution in social life.” An Error in Interpretation, p. 244.
When you hear them discuss protected non-Muslim subjects’ rights in an Islamic state, and permitting them to remain in unbelief so long as their actions concern themselves, they do not mean “that when Islam governs it will not force anyone to embrace Islam, but will merely subject them to its political and social system. This much is undoubtedly correct. Movement activists, however, intend another meaning beyond what ordinary Muslims understand: rule and power are Islam’s highest purpose and foremost objective. This implies that an individual person’s guidance is not intended, at least not primarily. Once rule and authority are achieved, there is no harm in unbelievers remaining in unbelief.” Introduction to the Interpretation of Islam, p. 230.
In reality, this is an inverted, overturned understanding: “a radical distortion of the messengers’ call and of Islam, its objectives, and its ends. The primary, principal goal of the invitation is guiding the individual as an individual so that he may be saved on Resurrection Day. Authority, government, wealth, strength, and fighting are merely means to that noblest goal. Thus, when the Prophet sent Ali ibn Abi Talib to fight the Jews of Khaybar, he reminded him that fighting’s purpose was not victory and domination but individual guidance. He said: ‘Proceed calmly until you reach their territory, then invite them to Islam and tell them the rights of God incumbent upon them within it. By God, for God to guide one man through you is better for you than possessing red camels.’ Al-Bukhari narrated it (3009, 4210), and Muslim (2406), from Sahl ibn Sad al-Saidi.
This reality is plainly evident in God’s Book: His invitation to His servants, His account of His messengers’ calls and dealings with their peoples, and His commands to our noble Prophet. All conclusively show that the goal of the invitation and message is guiding the individual to the true religion in this world so as to bring about his salvation in the Hereafter. This is the wisdom in accepting protected non-Muslim subjects in the Muslim state: their entry into Islamic society and mixing with Muslims make their guidance likely, without compulsion. God says: {He sent among the unlettered a messenger from themselves, reciting His signs to them, purifying them, and teaching them the Book and wisdom, though previously they were in manifest error (2)} [al-Jumuah]. He says: {People of the Book, Our Messenger has come to clarify matters for you after a break in the succession of messengers, lest you say: No bearer of good news or warner came to us. A bearer of good news and a warner has indeed come to you. God has power over everything (19)} [al-Maidah].” Introduction to the Interpretation of Islam, pp. 230-231.
We thus know that some activists’ enthusiasm in rejecting the call to ‘Abrahamism’ is false and adulterated, motivated by political hostility towards a particular state. Had they been included in the Abrahamism project, they would have been first to join it, quickest to justify it religiously, and most eager to issue encouraging rulings. Indeed, they already practise it by issuing rulings and articles justifying seeking mercy for a Christian woman unjustly killed. Had that woman held an opposing political stance, they would have cursed her forever and displayed every text prohibiting mercy and forgiveness for deceased unbelievers.
It is thus unsurprising that Dr Ali al-Qaradaghi, secretary-general of the International Union of Scholars of the Muslim Brotherhood Organisation, issued a ruling permitting some deceased unbelievers to be called ‘martyrs’ and mercy to be sought for them. He was already known for warmly kissing, for political interests, the head of the secular Marxist irreligious Jalal Talabani.
Nor is the conduct of the other Brotherhood shaykh, Issam Talimah, surprising. He swore by Almighty God that his error was a matter of belief, not politeness, saying: “By Almighty God, I know she was Christian, and I wrote what I believe religiously permissible. May God forgive her and have mercy on her.”
These two men and their like then dared commit another grave sin, claiming that this is ‘a disputed issue’: {Their testimony will be recorded, and they will be questioned (19)} [al-Zukhruf].
Finally, the desperate defence we witness, even through lying and deception, to justify seeking mercy and forgiveness for unbelievers is simply a result consistent with the foundations and motives of this utilitarian and political interpretation of religion. As the saying goes: “Once the cause is known, wonder ceases.”
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds.