public office, the rejection of their testimony, and the refusal to ransom them when captured by the enemy—together with other penalties that are suitable only for one who has departed from Islam. In so doing they altered the religion much as many apostates had altered it before. Then Allah sent forth a people whom He loves and who love Him, humble toward the believers, mighty against the disbelievers, striving in the path of Allah and fearing (1) no reproach from any critic. They strove for Allah with the truest striving, following the way of the Siddiq and his brothers who fought the apostates (2) after the death of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—until the Muslims stamped one of them with the rank of imamate and named him the second Siddiq, for he was the most deserving of that recognition when others’ resolve had grown weak.

Those same Jahmiyyah pronounced the believers to be unbelieving apostates, while treating what is in fact outright disbelief and denial of the Messenger as faith and knowledge. They confused the leading scholars and the community by mixing truth with falsehood, and their trial in the religion proved more harmful than the tribulation stirred up by the rebellious Khawarij (3); for the latter—even though they declared the believers unbelievers and deemed their blood lawful—