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Is a patient with psychosis held accountable for words of disbelief that he utters while asleep?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The sleeping person is not held accountable, by scholarly consensus, due to the Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) saying: "The pen has been lifted from three: from the sleeper until he awakens, from the child until he reaches puberty, and from the insane person until he recovers" (Narrated by Abu Dawud and An-Nasa'i). The reason for this is that the sleeper's intellect is absent, and the intellect is the basis of accountability. Therefore, there is no accountability for what issues from him during his sleep, and he should strive to seek treatment.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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