Is Someone Who Knowingly Lies about Being Descended from the Prophet Still a Muslim?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question

If someone knowingly lies about being descended from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), does that make him a disbeliever? I accept that it is a major sin, but I want to know whether he remains a Muslim.

Answer

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

Someone who knowingly lies about being descended from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) remains a Muslim, and the lie is a grave sin: a lie against him, and a false claim of lineage. It calls for rectification and sincere repentance. It is not outright disbelief (kufr), unless the person unequivocally deems it permissible.

You are asking about someone else. The ruling on a particular man is not yours to pass, and I cannot pass it from a description. Nothing here licenses calling another Muslim a disbeliever.

Two reports make this feel like a question about faith itself. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Do not turn away from your fathers; whoever turns away from his father has disbelieved.” [Mishkat al-Masabih 3315] He also said, “Whoever claims descent from someone other than his father, while knowing he is not his father, Paradise is forbidden to him.” [Mishkat al-Masabih 3314]

Both are texts of severe warning (wa id). The scholars leave such texts as they were said, neither softening them nor turning them into a verdict on the man’s faith. They name what the deed deserves, not where the doer stands. So “Paradise is forbidden to him” is read alongside the rule that keeps major sin and disbelief apart: whoever dies upon divine oneness (tawhid) does not abide in the Fire, even without repenting [al-Mawsuʿa al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya 13:233]. That first report’s last word is printed more than one way, and nothing here turns on which.

Ibn al-Athir (Allah have mercy on him), in his dictionary of hadith vocabulary (al-Nihaya), draws the line your question turns on, quoted here by Mulla Ali al-Qari (Allah have mercy on him). Whoever holds such a claim to be lawful has disbelieved, for contradicting scholarly consensus. Whoever does not hold it lawful is said to have disbelieved in one of two senses: his act resembles the act of the disbelievers, or he is ungrateful for the blessing of Islam [Mulla Ali al-Qari, Mirqat al-Mafatih 5:2170]. Your word “knowingly” puts him on the second side, not the first. Nothing in your question puts him there.

That the lineage claimed is the Prophet’s own (Allah bless him and give him peace) makes this heavier than the general case. It is a lie told against his household, and it wrongs every family that carries that descent. It does not change the ruling. It deepens the sin.

Our Hanafi imams add one more check, addressed to the scholar and not to onlookers. Ibn Abidin (Allah have mercy on him) holds that nothing takes a man out of faith except denial of what brought him into it, and that where a case admits a construction that prevents a ruling of disbelief, the mufti must lean to it, thinking well of the Muslim, unless the man plainly says he intended what entails disbelief [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar 4:224]. The man in your question has said no such thing.

What He Owes Now

What he owes is more than private regret. He must undo the claim where he made it: correct the record with everyone who was told, stand down from any honor, position, or money it won him, and return what he took. Those are other people’s rights, and regret does not clear them.

As for you, hold him to be a Muslim who has fallen into a grave sin. If you know him, tell him privately what he owes, then carry it to no one else.

Allah Most High says:

ٱدۡعُوهُمۡ لِأٓبَآئِهِمۡ هُوَ أَقۡسَطُ عِندَ ٱللَّهِۚ فَإِن لَّمۡ تَعۡلَمُوٓاْ ءَابَآءَهُمۡ فَإِخۡوَٰنُكُمۡ فِي ٱلدِّينِ وَمَوَٰلِيكُمۡۚ وَلَيۡسَ عَلَيۡكُمۡ جُنَاحٞ فِيمَآ أَخۡطَأۡتُم بِهِۦ وَلَٰكِن مَّا تَعَمَّدَتۡ قُلُوبُكُمۡۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ غَفُورٗا رَّحِيمًا

“Call them by the names of their own fathers: it is more equitable in the sight of Allah; So if you do not know their fathers, they are and should be called your brothers and special friends in religion; And you bear no sin for an honest mistake in saying something else, but only what your hearts deliberately resolve on; And truly Allah was ever all-forgiving, all-compassionate.” [Quran 33:5; Keller, The Quran Beheld]

The verse that names the wrong closes on the mercy that meets it. A man who tells the truth about his father again and asks his Lord for pardon has a forgiven sin behind him.

And Allah knows best.

Faraz Rabbani

Related Answers

• Does Falsely Claiming Lineage Lead to Major Disbelief? — The kufr named in the hadith on false lineage means sin and ingratitude, not the disbelief that removes someone from Islam.
• Is Lying About the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) an Act of Disbelief? — Deliberately lying about the Prophet is a grave sin, but only becomes disbelief under strict, narrowly defined conditions.
• What Takes a Person Out of the Fold of Islam? — What actually removes a Muslim from Islam, and why passing that verdict belongs to qualified scholars, never to onlookers.
• Why Does Islam Not View That Publicly Committed Sins Make One a Disbeliever? — Public sin does not make someone a disbeliever, and repentance remains open for as long as a person lives.