What happens to someone who lived and died having never heard of Islam?

Such people are termed ahl al-fatrah — those the message never reached in a sound form — and the governing principle is that Allah does not punish before the proof is established: 'We would never punish until We had sent a messenger' (Qur'an 17:15), and messengers were sent 'so that mankind would have no argument against Allah after the messengers' (Qur'an 4:165). The position adopted by many of the verifying scholars — reported from Imam Ahmad and championed by Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim — is that they will be tested on the Day of Resurrection and judged by their response; and when the Prophet ﷺ was asked about the children of the mushrikīn he said, 'Allah knows what sort of deeds they would have done' (Bukhārī 1384), deferring their fate to Allah's knowledge rather than pronouncing on it. This does not make Islam optional for anyone the message has genuinely reached (Qur'an 3:85), nor does it license us to declare the fate of any particular person — their affair rests with Allah, who is never unjust to anyone. And every child is born upon the fiṭrah, the natural disposition to worship Allah alone, until his upbringing turns him elsewhere (Bukhārī 1385).

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