Grand Ayatollah Shirazi: Denying essentials of religion without knowledge is not apostasy
The daily scholarly meeting of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Sadegh al-Hosseini al-Shirazi was held on Sunday, 6th of Rabi al-Akhar 1445. In this session, like the previous meetings, the Supreme Marja answered the questions of the attendees about various jurisprudence issues.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi answered a question about those who do not accept some religious issues or express doubts about some of them, or in some cases, make fun of some religious matters, and said: If these people accept the testimony to Allah and the Prophet (Shahadatain) and do not deny the essentials of religion, they are not considered apostates.
His Eminence also discussed the ruling of the Sunni being Muslims even though they deny the Imamate of the Holy Imams, peace be upon them, he said: There is a debate here that if someone is a Shia and then denies the Imamate of the Holy Imams, peace be upon them, he/she is applied the ruling of an unbeliever or Kafir, according to some jurists, because in Shiism, it is necessary to accept the Imamate of Holy Imams (peace be upon them).
He went on to say: But if someone was not a Shia, and denied the Imamate of the Holy Imams, peace be upon them, then he/she is not considered an unbeliever, and is applied the ruling of a Muslim, but not considered a Mu’min.
Grand Ayatollah Shirazi emphasized the condition of awareness to label someone as apostate when denying the necessities of religion, and said: Many of those who deny some tenets have no knowledge about them, and so they are not considered apostates.
