(ii) The one whose good deeds and bad deeds balance out. These are the People of al-Aʿrāf, an elevated place between Paradise and Hell on which they will remain for as long as Allah wills; then, after that, they will enter Paradise, exactly as described in the Qur’an.

(iii) The one whose bad deeds outweigh his good deeds. Such a person deserves to enter the Fire unless something prevents it: the Prophet’s intercession for him, or the intercession of a relative or acquaintance to whom Allah grants intercession on the Day of Resurrection because of their lofty rank and honor with Him (1), or he may be overtaken by Allah’s pure mercy with no intermediary at all. If none of this occurs, he must enter Hell, where he will be punished in proportion to his sins; afterwards, his final abode will be Paradise.

No one will remain in Hell whose heart contains the tiniest—indeed, the tiniest, tiniest—particle of faith, the weight of a mustard seed. This is established by mass-transmitted hadiths from the Prophet ﷺ and is the unanimous doctrine of the early generations and the leading scholars of the ummah.

• The one who follows a middle course (al-muqtasid) is the believer who performs the obligatory acts and avoids the prohibited ones without engaging extensively in supererogatory worship. When he slips into minor lapses, he hastens to repent and thus returns to his former standing. Such people are the Companions of the Right. About them Allah says, “Peace be upon you—[you are] of the Companions of the Right” (Al-Wāqiʿah 56:91). They are kept safe from the torment of the grave and the punishment of the Fire; Allah preserves for them their faith and their deeds and, on that basis, admits them to Paradise, each according to his rank.

• The forerunner in good deeds (al-sābiq) is the believer who perfects all the levels of Islam and attains the station of iḥsān: he worships Allah as though he sees Him— and even if he does not see Him, he knows that Allah sees him—and he expends whatever he can to benefit others