Ruling a Muslim to be a Non-Muslim

12-7-2018 | IslamWeb

Question:

Asalamo aleikoum scholars. Making things that are haram halal is kufr and the opposite. And it is known amongst scholars that falling in this kind of thibgs wheether is jocking or not it does not make any difference. What about this scenario. I am sitting with a brother and then a third person comes to us to talk with us and he does not shake hands with us so the brother who Im sitting with says to this person that came : Shaking hands is haram do not do it, it is haram! And he said this to make him notice that he should have had shaked hands with us. Do this brother fall in making haram what Allah made halal as he pronounced with his mouth even though he was jocking?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

The statement said by your friend was said as a way of reminding the third person that he should have shaken your hands. It is obvious that he did not intend to make what is lawful prohibited, because he said it is a form of objecting to what he did and not approving of it. It is as if he said to him: “Is shaking hands prohibited and so you did not shake our hands?”

We draw your attention that ruling a Muslims to be non-Muslim is a dangerous matter that one must avoid and beware of, and this is why the scholars have set restrictions to govern this issue; please refer the following Fataawa for details on this matter: 8106 and 87963.

Allah knows best.