Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Fasiq

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Fasiq (Arabic: فاسق‎‎) is an Arabic term referring to someone who violates Islamic law. As a fasiq is considered unreliable, his testimony is not accepted in Islamic courts. The terms fasiq and fisq are sometime rendered as "impious", "venial sinner", or "depraved".

Contents

Origin

Fasiq is derived from the term fisq (Arabic: فسق‎‎), "breaking the agreement" or "to leave or go out of."

In its original Quranic usage, the term did not have the specific meaning of a violator of laws, and was more broadly associated with kufr (disbelief).

Theological debate

  • The jurist Wasil ibn Ata (700-748 CE) submitted that a fasiq remained a member of Muslim society, so retained rights to life and property though he could not hold a religious position. This opinion set him at odds with Mu'tazilite jurists who considered a fasiq to be a munafiq (hypocrite), and the Kharijites who considered the fasiq a kafir.
  • To the Kharijites "faith without works" was worthless, so one who professed Islam yet sinned was fasiq, and thus a kafir.

    • Applications

    Amongst the terms uses in geopolitics, in the period leading up to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini described both the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein as fasiq.

    References

    Fasiq Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA