Declaring to be a disbeliever...

Question 6: In relation to some of the Muslim countries; that allows many bars, evil actions, and fornication. Is that be counted as one the open acts of disbelief, which, it is permissible to revolt against them?

 

Answer: There is a difference between the one, who believes, what Allah has made Haraam is lawful and between the one, who does what Allah made unlawful while not deeming it permissible.

 

Like the one, who drinks intoxicants while he believes that it is not permissible or the one who consumes Riba while he believes that it is not permissible. This person is not the one, who committed an act of disbelief that take him out of Islam. He is a Faasiq (i.e. Open sinner) who is deficient in Eemaan. If a legal punishment is due to him, then the punishment is due to him for stealing, or for drinking; however, he is not declared a heretic, because he did not deem this matter to be permissible.

 

As for the one, who deemed permissible these things; then indeed, he is a disbeliever. Because whoever deemed something to be permissible while its impermissibility is agreed upon them, indeed He is a disbeliever, even if he did not do it so what is the case if he did.

 

Shaykh Saleh bin Fawzan bin Abdillah al-Fawzan hafidahu Allah.

From the Book: Declaring a Muslim to be an Apostate, and its guidelines. Pg. 37-38.