it is not the position of Ahl al-Sunnah to say what the Kharijites (1) and the Muʿtazilites claim—that a single major sin (2) annuls all good deeds (3), faith included, and that whoever dies persisting in a grave sin is left with no faith whatsoever, is consigned to Hell forever, and will never leave it, neither through intercession nor by any other means. Many of them (4)—al-Jubbāʾī and his son, for example—speak of a “balancing” (between good deeds and sins) (5); yet they still maintain that anyone whose sins outweigh his good deeds will be consigned to the Fire eternally. Balancing without perpetual confinement in the Fire, however, is the view held by the majority of the early generations and most of Ahl al-Sunnah (6).

There is, nevertheless, a type of nullification on which all Muslims agree: disbelief erases every good deed. (7) It is unanimously accepted that apostasy, if a person dies upon it, obliterates all prior works, for the disbeliever possesses no righteous deed that could admit him to Paradise. Allah, Exalted is He, says: “Whoever among you turns back from his religion and dies as an unbeliever—their deeds will become worthless in this world and the Hereafter…”