The Fifth Issue:

Some of the notables hold the view that a ruler who alters the Sharī’ah becomes a disbeliever if he alters it entirely. However, this argument is flawed because the textual evidence does not differentiate between altering a single ruling or several rulings, and disbelief cannot be attributed to something without clear evidence. It is true that one who replaces the entire Sharī’ah may be more culpable than someone who replaces part of it, but the focus here is on disbelief, for which there is no evidence, not on determining whose crime is greater. Thus, one might ask: If altering the entire Sharī’ah makes someone a disbeliever, what is the ruling on someone who replaces a quarter of it? Half of it? Two-thirds of it? This leads to the critical question that exposes the lack of evidence (in this argument): What about someone who replaces all of the Sharī‘ah except for one ruling? If you consider him to be a disbeliever, you contradict the principle that the cause of disbelief is the complete replacement of the Sharī‘ah. If you do not, then your reasoning goes against sound logic. I say: If it becomes clear that complete alteration cannot be clearly defined, then it is evident that it cannot be the basis for declaring someone a disbeliever, even by those who consider it major disbelief. This is because, in Muslim countries that do not fully implement Sharī‘ah, there is still some application of Allāh's law, however much it may be, whether small or large. Thus, the cause for declaring disbelief, which was complete abandonment of Sharī‘ah, is nullifed.