Ar-Riddah - Question & Answer 1

State a proof from al-hadith that it is not a condition for one to fall in al-kufr that the person knows the judgment.

The prophet, salla-l-lahu ^alayhi wa sallam, said:

A person may utter a word that he thinks harmless, but it results in his falling in Hellfire [the depth of ] 70 years [in travel]. That is, the distance covered in descending 70 years in Hellfire.

This is the bottom of Hellfire (Jahannam) and it is only inhabited by the kuffar (non-Muslims, blasphemers).

This hadith was narrated by at-Tirmidhiyy who classified it as hassan [i.e., authentic]. A hadith related by al-Bukhariyy and Muslim has a similar meaning.

It says:

The slave may utter a word that he thinks not haram, but it results in his falling in Hellfire [a deep distance] longer than that between the east and west.

Al-hafidh Ibn Hajar said in Fath al-Bariyy when interpreting the aforementioned hadith: 

This includes what infers belittling Allah or His Islamic Laws.

Those two hadith are a proof that it is not a condition for a person to commit kufr that he knows the judgment, feels delighted, or believes the meaning of the uttered [blasphemous] word. [Such a condition was] falsely stated as such in the book of “Fiqh as-Sunnah”. The book of “Fiqh as-Sunnah” has stipulated that this is a condition, but such a condition is unfounded.