QUESTION:
How to solve this issue: Allah (Exalted is He) creates a person from two disbelieving parents in a land far away from Muslims and makes him grow up in a deviant environment. On the other hand, Allah creates another person from two Muslim parents and makes him grow up in an Islamic and religious environment. At last, will they be judged on the basis that one of them was a Muslim and one of them was a disbeliever?
Rashed
ANSWER:
In the Name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful.
May Allah bless Muhammad and his Family and damn their enemies.
Being born in a non-Muslim and disbelieving environment has nothing to do with a person’s sense of logic and his free will to choose. Allah (Exalted is He) has even obliged those who are born in a Muslim environment to embrace his religion and doctrine through research and examination, not just by following his parents. Thus, a Muslim and a non-Muslim alike are both equal in this matter.
Allah (Exalted is He) will not punish anyone of His servants unless the proof has been made clear to him. When a disbeliever rejects the truth after being invited and after it has been made clear to him; he does so by his own will, not because he was born in a non-Muslim and disbelieving environment. Some people have been born in Muslim environments، but still, they have apostatized and become Atheists, and vice versa. Moreover, you should know that a person who embraces Islam and goes against his environment and whose deeds are good; he might even be given a higher rank and reward by Allah (Exalted is He) than he who is born in an environment that is closer to the truth.
In all cases, even if we assume that a certain person is born in a non-Muslim and disbelieving environment and dies as a disbeliever – not for rejecting the truth, or for being careless about accepting the call of Islam – but rather for failing to recognize the truth, or out of ignorance, and so on; such a person doesn’t need to be put to damnation on the Day of Resurrection. Allah (Exalted is He) will indeed include those who are of few intellectual capabilities, in His mercy on that Day, and He will surely enter many of them into Paradise after putting them to a special trial made particularly for them. The justice of Allah is general, common, absolute and complete, and it applies to everyone, and His mercy encompasses everything, including the disbelievers
The Office of Sheikh al-Habib