Home
Discover Islam
Quran Recitations
Lectures
Fatwa
Articles
Fiqh
E-Books
Women
Boys & Girls 
Enter Question
View By Subject
Fatwa Of The Week
Selected Fatwa
Fatwa CenterSaying that some people take their desires as their god is not kufr
Question
Asallam U Alaikum, If a person said to another person in anger"if you make something more important than Allah subhana wa ta ala in your life (like money etc) Its your god, you have made it into". The person meant that this is wrong to do and they didn't mean it literally. Is this kufr statement(Allah forbid).
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
If a person says to another person, "If anything in your life (money and the like) is more important to you than Allaah, then it is your god because you have taken it as a god", in the context which you mentioned, is not at all Kufr (disbelief), and he is correct about this, because a general qualification, without passing judgment on a particular person, that those who place the love of something ahead of the love of Allaah have taken such a thing as a god is a correct qualification. However, it does not necessarily imply declaring the person qualified as such to be a disbeliever.
Ibn Taymiyyah 
said: "The people, although they say with their tongues, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allaah', a person saying this sincerely from his heart has an actualization beyond this; it is according to this actualization of Tawheed (unification of Allaah) that obedience to Allaah is complete. Allaah says (what means): {Have you seen the one who takes as his god his own desire? Then would you be responsible for him? Or do you think that most of them hear or reason? They are not except like livestock. Rather, they are [even] more astray in [their] way.} [Quran 25:43-44] So whoever deifies his desires, then his god is his desires, i.e. he has taken his desires as his object of worship." [End of quote]
Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allaah have mercy upon him, added: "It is for this reason that Shirk (associating partners with Allaah) is predominant in the children of Aadam (Adam); Allaah says (what means): {And most of them believe not in Allaah except while they associate others with Him.} [Quran 12:106] So you may find a person who is a slave to other than Allaah; he takes such a thing as his god; he loves it, he glorifies it, he fears it, he desires it, to the extent that the Prophet said: 'May the slave of the Dinar stumble; may the slave of the Dirham stumble; may the slave of the Khameesah (a luxurious garment) stumble; for if he is given, he is content, and if not, he is discontent. May he stumble and not rise again, and may he be pricked with a thorn, and not pull the thorn out.' The same applies to anyone who is attached to a leadership position or a certain image, or anything else that one desires; if he achieves such things he is content, and if not, he is discontent, so he is a slave of what he desires among these things, and he is a slave to such things because slavery and ‘Uboodiyyah (worship) are in fact the enslavedness of the heart, and so it is a slave to whatever enslaves it." [Al-Fataawa Al-Kubra]
Besides, Ibn Rajab said: "If a person loves something and obeys it, and he takes it as his ultimate purpose and objective, and he takes allies for its sake, and he takes enemies for its sake, then he is a slave of such a thing, and such a thing is the one to which he directs his worship and it is his god." [End of quote]
Allaah Knows best.
Search Fatwa
Fatwa Subject
