Suicide & Euthanasia - Is the deceased punished by God | Mufti Abu Layth

all right so let's take a look at this question this i was asked about this uh it's a a very emotional question for certain people and it's to do with the topic of suicide i was asked by somebody who knew somebody reasonably close to them that had committed suicide that what does islam say about this is there no hope for such a person is it doom and gloom is that all that islam has to offer and have

no scholars in islam challenge that view of doom and gloom have they not or have have they presented a counter narrative approach as well so the general understanding one will find is that it is clearly haram and that a person is then consequently and consecutively punished so this is the view that you know if you did a google search you will find this straight away this is what every other website muslim website will be you know kind of laying the smack down with that it's haram haram

kufar some may say it's kufar people say you'll be continuously punished now there is another view but before i come to that i want to present what these people are basing this on so you can see they use verses like this that you can see there but i and whosoever does that allah says

we will um we will immerse them into oh sorry we will place them into a fire and that indeed reflecting basically that they will be doomed and damned and such an act is simple for allah but it's noteworthy that allah does not say whosoever does that he says whosoever does that

out of that out of enmity out of oppression so i would argue that this first verse is not talking about yourself do not kill yourself it means do not kill one another although one by extension could include suicide in it but the verse directly is not speaking about killing about killing yourself it's talking about

and there is a verse in um in surat al-baqarah as well where it's mentioned similarly about bani about about killing yourselves but it mentions over there the scholars for the most part generally clearly understand that it does not mean anfusakum that do not as a group do not kill one another that's what it means but the second verse that they go to do not throw yourselves into

peril or self-destruction that definitely could go on to mean about killing yourself this verse will attack do not kill the self which allah has forbidden from such an act from the act of murder except rightfully i would say that this doesn't necessarily it can include it and doesn't necessarily include it because this verse seems to show that under certain circumstances um exercising the ability exercising the act of killing a self

is justified that's what it the verse seems to suggest so i if people were perpetrators or things like this but i would also argue that euthanasia does come under that as well so you can see that but then there are hadith that people will primarily use so this is a hadith in sahih muslim and then there is one in bukhari as well and much will come to that inside muslim this hadith

so this is a much more direct hadith speaking about suicide that whosoever kills himself this person who stabs himself or pierces himself with this sharp sharp object

that this person will be in the hell fire forever and it mentions infinitely that there is no one it repeats that on three separate occasions so whosoever drinks poison kills himself or herself bite and he then he is drinking it yes

that person perpetually continues to consume that poison for an eternity this is what the hadith is saying so whosoever throws himself from a cliff um or some somehow some point then he continues to do so in the fire of hell for an eternity so these hadith are what people generally use there is also in bukhari this is a more interesting one um you will see that um this is part of a slightly longer

hadith but the interesting point here at the end where allah is saying it's a hadith in bukhari i believe it's transmitted by juntup now it mentions badarani abdi binafci so my slave tried to beat me to it i have declared jannah haram for him now this these are the hadith that people use now firstly i would like to say here that i do not believe that euthanasia

is a clear-cut matter within islam i do not believe that it is an unquote it is a certain no i don't i believe that islam would understand to make an exception for people that were that their lives were unlivable unbearable especially if they were suffering from terminal illness or debilitating extremely debilitating conditions

that it would be that they would be able to i believe that there would be a rother for those people now that said so that's euthanasia however suicide generally speaking is often done when people are feeling helpless with normal so i'm talking about now about normal people who are not um you know terminally ill and so on but people often who may have been so burdened by financial debt or sometimes they've been dumped and they can't they don't know how to move on in life or

sometimes so many tragedies hit them simultaneously so people have an ability to cope yeah now however if for three maybe five tragedies simultaneously smacked you they would be you know it would leave you in a position where it may be very difficult to cope because people feel that how can i get out of these

and when you're in under the burden of that you can't think clearly and you're not thinking like somebody who's not under that um burden you see so it's so somebody may have for example like let's say they had some health conditions now because of the health conditions they lost a job so this depressed because of the health conditions and now they lost their job so they financially so let's say their wife says oh or their girlfriend or whoever says their partner says ah you're a loser

but people often when when when the tough gets you know when when the going gets tough people unfortunately walk out so um the partner says well i'm off and she goes and the person let's say he loses i don't know add another tragedy loses his children they've gone as well and they think well what's there in life and i'm using the male example just because suicides are more common in male than they are in female so

in this condition when people become overwhelmed and take their own lives most people will say most muslims will state that that not only is haram it is a form of kuffar they will state they will say that this is something that the person will continue to be punished by that till the end of time and really that that one shouldn't even really pray their janazah except some people can do it you know this is the the kind of outlook and i would say that is such a

horrible thing to say because i my understanding is when islam if some of these narrations are authentic then these are being stated from a position of of deterring of being a deterrent not as a consequence so these are trying to they're trying to close any ounce any gap in that person giving up they're trying to

in a worst case even scare them to carry on fighting that's what they're trying to do they're not a result you see it's like if i if you had a test and i say to you you know god damn you you lose this everything is over you know don't even bother you know what if you do not i want you to learn day and night because if you're not prepared you know if you do not pass don't walk back through that door now if i use these kind of this kind of hyperbole such hyperbolic statements it's to

really push you and and squeeze every last drop of willpower and to make sure you exert yourself however there is a difference and you'll see this in in fact there is a difference what they say once something has happened so now imagine you had failed in the exam now i would just in fact be very positive in saying look it's not the end of the world better luck next time

don't worry about it you see this however i one would not adopt that approach before the exam because then you'd just be too chilled and you would you wouldn't bother revising so this is it has to be it's positional it's not an absolute it's relative so if a person has committed suicide in that case look of course there is there's there's hope and the person was a muslim if they were muslim and no it is not kuffar not at all it is not kufr and no the

person will certainly not be punished that is absolutely incorrect and i would like to present the understanding a response made by a scholar ibn arabi the legend mahadeen ibn arabi who in his fortune you can see here he mentions that he's speaking about the other that uh

that somebody who kills himself with something is punished by it and he's discussing this he's highlighting and he brings up this hadith and he first of all makes a point he says this is from his he says that look the adila to sharaya you have to mean jihadin you have to look at different angles and perspectives before you understand what the actual ruling of the shariah is don't just look at one hadith one ayah you have to look at it holistically and he says

now uh and he says that these verses by the way he says these verses are actually speaking about somebody who is not a believer because it says man it does not say a muslim or a mukmin he says somebody who truly rejects god they are threatening that person that's what he says to start off with secondly uh so that's him here speaking about first of all those verses uh not being about believers secondly

when addressing the hadith he says so he says a person who killed himself sees that even though this is a tragedy and you see the person as having failed but they in many ways feel that allah is more merciful with them because they can't handle what they're in so they've gone to god and this is his explanation he says he says for umkin he says it is possible that look

and he's coming to that hadith where allah which the one from bukhari that uh the hadith could see that allah says he has tried to beat me to it that he says uh he says let me just say yep sorry it's just a really it's so he says that this is possible that the word of allah where he says i have made jannah forbidden for him

before meeting now check this out the i look how interesting the spin that shaykh naarubi uh so he says

now that's i find that incredibly fascinating that he is saying that allah is is saying that this person has like he has beat me to trying to meet me and for normal he says in another hadith that it has been stated that the believers in god will enter jannah be in the other realm first then they will experience or see god

he says however the person who's done this because allah says you know he has beat me kind of to it that i have made jannah haram for him until he sees me first this person will meet me first then he can enter jannah he will experience the presence of god before jannah unlike the others who will first go to j will experience the realm the dimension then the presence of god

is such a an unexpected spin on this whole discussion and he says look that is because allah says that i am as my servant expects of me so let them think good of me and he says

he says so he thinks good of allah that's why he gives up in this world to go back to god and he mentions uh that and so he says there's nothing clear in the sharia definitive and this is ibn arabi saying it to show that the opposite meaning is conclusive

um and then he goes on to to mention a hadith because he says look if you look at the hadith they mention that he says do not the hadith teaches anybody with the less than an atom's weight of of faith in his heart does not the hadith teach us that allah says remove them from any um from any discomfort or from the fire or damnation so you know what you have to say about such a person

so this is even ought to be giving such a twist to it which i found incredibly interesting and he also goes on to say that yes allah does say in some of these verses about one could say about punishment but he says that this is as the arabs say the distinction between wa'd and that yes they do fulfill people fulfill promises but it is from the it is from the magnitude of the grace that they forego threats

so he mentions that so i would like to say that yes um i definitely am in line with what maheden ibn arabi is teaching that yes a person like that there is definitely a positive spin uh on it but i would equally just as i mentioned before there is a distinction i understand those threats and those things are there so to make sure people you know it's that it it kind of reinforces every last molecule of strength to keep fighting

that don't give up that's the kind of that's the message and and i'm 100 you know with that um you know there's a amazing hadith i believe it's in is it in sahih muslim but that where the prophet says that you know it is amazing that the one who has faith and it's interesting the word mutmen that the one who has faith uh the prophet said i it's so intriguingly amazing therapy that

you know in asaba that if he is if he has something good come his way or her way they are grateful and if something bad afflicts them they are patient that why knowing that look there is a greater scheme to things that having faith and trust in allah and that is so important to to to have that to be able to to know that look where there's a will there is a way sometimes we just don't see it but

we have to kind of clear the mind sometimes or maybe just step back and then look because you might be surprised you might be just completely overseeing something so that's my message that 100 i agree that one must always fight on never to kind of give in that they will always you know things may seem as miserable as they are and and i understand i am speaking just broadly here i'm not speaking about the euthanasia cases speaking just broadly here

that people should never just allow themselves to give in that said those who have taken their own lives due to depression or all of these kind of circumstances that we may have mentioned or may not have that people that just haven't you know found the will to fight and they've given up we don't feel in that case post occurrence we don't respond in in a gloomy way and we don't say that these people have no faith or that there is

no hope or that they will be punished that's not at all true and in fact as much said allah in fact sees that that hadith can be understood that badarani abdi that my slave or my servant beat me to it so i have made jannah haram for him until he doesn't come to my presence first it's a very amazing spin given just to show once again the the the greatness of some of the scholarship of this ummah

that even in the darkest of tragedies they shone and managed to demonstrate the light of faith and iman that is taught in the quran and the sunnah as they've explained it so to me that is absolutely um a beautiful very kind of soothing response to somebody going through such a bereavement that may allah make things easy for each and all