The Ruling on Saying صُدْفَة “sudfah” (coincidence)

The Ruling on Saying صُدْفَة “sudfah” (coincidence)

 

 

The following question was posed to the Eminent Scholar Saalih Fawzaan حفظه الله 

 

Arabic audio for the Q & A:

 

http://www.fileswap.com/dl/vYEU5v0d9k/sudfah.mp3.html

Arabic text ¹

 

 

فضيلة الشيخ وفقكم الله : هل يجوز قول هذا القول وهو ( قابلت فلانا صدفة ) إذا كان مقابلته بدون موعد ؟

 

العلامة صالح الفوزان حفظه الله :

إذا كان قصده صدفة يعني بدون موعد فلا بأس ، أما إن كان صدفة أن هذا ما قدر في القدر السابق فهذا لا يجوز ، هذا إنكار للقدر لكن غالب المسلمين لا يقصدون هذا ، لا يقصدون إنكار القدر يقصدون صدفة يعني ما كنت أُؤَمِّل هذا أو لست على موعد معه , نعم .

 

Q: Noble Shaikh, (we ask that) Allaah grant you success, is the following statement permissible: “I met this person by coincidence” when it was a meeting without a prior appointment?

 

A: When a person intends by sudfah (coincidence): without a prior appointment, then there is no harm in this. As for when a person intends by sudfah (coincidence) that this was something that was not already decreed (by Allaah) in a previous decree, then this is not permissible. This is rejection of qadr (divine predecree). However, most of the Muslims don’t mean this, they don’t mean the rejection of qadr. They mean by sudfah (coincidence) that they weren’t expecting it and that there was no previous agreement.

 

Shaikh Albaanee رحمه الله تعالى was asked² about saying “sudfah”, specifically the expression:

 

حدث هذا صدفة

‘This happened by coincidence.’

 

and part of his reply was:

 

“So if he intends by sudfah (coincidence) that there is no qadr (divine pre-decree), then he has disbelieved….As for when he intends by it that all of this is by the command of Allaah and His decree then there is nothing wrong with it.”

 

Footnotes

 

1 Taken from: http://www.sahab.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=133900

2 In the series al-Hudaa wan-Noor, audio/tape #216, http://www.alalbany.net/849 (p.8 in the file)