Who may be ruled as unbeliever and on what basis: The claim that a particular person will be in heaven or hell.
We do not call anyone who offers the Islamic prayer an unbeliever as a result of committing any sin other than disbelief in God. To revile God is an act of disbelief and is indeed worse than associating partners with him.
Who may be ruled as unbeliever and on what basis: The claim that a particular person will be in heaven or hell.
We do not call anyone who offers the Islamic prayer an unbeliever as a result of committing any sin other than disbelief in God. To revile God is an act of disbelief and is indeed worse than associating partners with him. An idolater does not bring God down to the status of stones; rather he elevates the stones to the rank of God. God mentions in the Qur’an what unbelievers will say on the Day of Judgement:
‘By God, we were obviously in error when we deemed you equal to the Lord of all the worlds’. (26: 97-8)
The one who reviles God brings Him down below the rank of stones.
To revile God is very grave disbelief. Like faith, disbelief may decrease and increase. God says:
‘The postponement [of sacred months] is only an excess of unbelief’. (9: 37)
‘But those who return to disbelief after having accepted the faith and then grow more stubborn in their rejection of the faith, their repentance will not be accepted. For they are those who have truly gone astray’. (3: 90)
However, the increase or decrease of disbelief does not lead to the unbeliever becoming exempt from punishment in the Fire; it only leads to increasing or lessening his punishment. God says:
‘Upon those who disbelieve and debar others from the path of God, We will heap suffering upon suffering in punishment for all the corruption they wrought’. (16: 88)
We do not testify that any particular person will be in heaven or hell except those whom God and His messenger have stated their destiny. We bear witness that whoever dies a believer belongs to heaven and whoever dies unbeliever will be in the Fire.