If a disbeliever remains insane all his life what will happen to him in this world and the hereafter? Will he be treated as a Muslim or a non-Muslim? As I was a support assistant for a mental patient who was a disbeliever and he has now passed away this question often comes to my mind.
Questioner: Nuzhat from UK
بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم
الجواب بعون الملک الوھاب اللھم ھدایۃ الحق والصواب
Such a mentally insane person will be considered in accordance to the following of his parents in worldly matters i.e. he will be treated as a disbeliever. He should not be washed nor shrouded, nor should the funeral prayer be read over him nor supplication made nor should he be buried in the graveyards of the Muslims. However, if he embraced Islām prior to becoming bāligh or after becoming bāligh he then became insane, such a person is a Muslim.
Just as it is mentioned in Bahār-e-Sharī’at that an insane person is in the ruling of a child in that he will be considered in [the] following [of his parents], provided that the insanity is actual. If he was Muslim prior to or after bulūgh [puberty] and then became insane, he is not considered as associatively following anyone, rather he is a Muslim. This is the same rule for someone who is extremely mentally deficient i.e. if this is his original state then he is considered in following [his parents], and if it has befallen him at some point then he is not considered in following [his parents].
[Bahār-e-Sharī’at, vol. 2, part 7, pg. 93]
My master A’lā Hazrat Imām Ahl al-Sunnah Ahmad Ridā Khān, may Allāh shower him with mercy, in explaining the meaning of ‘following’ [tab’iyyat] has said that if someone dies then we will not perform his funeral prayer and we will not wash and shroud him as a Muslim nor will we bury him in the graveyards of the Muslims.
[al-Fatāwā al-Ridawiyyah, vol. 28, pg. 450]
As for what will happen to such people in the Hereafter, then there are differing views amongst the ‘Ulamā` regarding this. The true reality is known by Allāh, the Glorious, the Majestic, but one has hope in His Grace and Mercy that He will forgive such people. Muftī Ahmad Yār Khān, may Allāh shower him with mercy, has said in Mir`āt al-Manājīh that the originally insane who pass away in that state of insanity, there is no accountability for them.
[Mir`āt al-Manājīh, vol. 7, Hadīth no. 439]
واللہ تعالی اعلم ورسولہ اعلم صلی اللہ علیہ وآلہ وسلم
کتبہ ابو الحسن محمد قاسم ضیاء قادری
Answered by Mufti Qasim Zia al-Qadri
Translated by Mawlana Ibrar Shafi
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