Back to search

Is a person excused for being ignorant of the things that nullify Islam, such as tribalism, partisanship, and separating religion from politics?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

It is not known that any scholar has unequivocally stated that tribalism (qabaliyyah) or partisan-sectarianism (asabiyyah) are among the nullifiers of Islam. As for the separation of religion from politics (secularism), it is a pre-Islamic (Jahili) concept that contradicts Islam. It falls under the fourth nullifier among the ten nullifiers of Islam, which is the belief that guidance other than that of the Prophet is more complete than his guidance, or that the rule of others is better than his rule. This includes those who believe that man-made laws are better than Sharia, or equal to it, or that it is permissible to seek judgment from them, or that Islam is not suitable for application in the modern era. Nevertheless, ruling a statement as disbelief does not mean declaring the specific person who uttered it to be an apostate, until the conditions are met and the impediments are removed.

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

Read the full answer on Ftawy