format_quote Originally Posted by
Hulk
From my limited understanding, that action does not take one out of the fold of Islam. First of all we don't know what the person might really mean, he might thank the doctor but that doesn't negate that he might know that the act of the doctor is a means that which Allah has provided for him. What would be a statement of shirk would be if he had said something like "If it were not for you then I would have surely died.".
Allahu alam
Actually I am only saying what I have been told. It goes something like this. If the man says,
"Thank you, doctor, for saving my life."
then he had specifically stated that the doctor had saved his life. Which isn't true because it's Allah and not the doctor who has the power of life and death. What his real niyat is, only Allah knows. We only know what is zahir. And from his statement, what is zahir is that he had attributed the power of Allah to something else. That, according to what I am taught, puts a person outside Islam because in doing that he has negated the first part of the twin declaratation of faith. To be outside Islam is to be a kafir. It's as simple as that.
I was told this together with the lesson on salat and why we repeat the twin declaration of faith in salat. I was told that we make the twin declaration of faith in salat so that if, inadvertently, we had done something to put ourselves outside Islam, we would be back on track again. Of course, if a person consciously and deliberately hold the view that there is some other power other than Allah, then there is no doubt about where he stands.
Here's another example of what I learned.
If a person says that Islam needs to be reformed or needs to change according to the times, then, in effect, he is saying that Allah is telling a lie when Allah declared that Islam is a complete religion. In other words, he is saying that Allah is not as All-Knowing as Allah is supposed to be. So where does that leave such a person? I was taught that such an attitude puts the person outside Islam.
Perhaps you were taught differently?