and his companions. Something very close to this (1) was stated (2) by Imam Abu Muhammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʿid al-Qattan (3), one of the earliest authorities of our school.

We maintain that whoever possesses affirmation with both heart and tongue is a believer inwardly and outwardly. Whoever affirms with his heart but refuses to utter the confession is a stubborn unbeliever, guilty of disbelief through obstinacy. Whoever utters it with his tongue while denying it in his heart is an unbeliever in the sight of Allah and in his own estimation, yet the rulings of faith apply to him in this life on account of the outward tokens of belief he displays (4).

Some of our scholars have considered the various cognitions to constitute a single act of assent: namely, recognition of Allah, His attributes, His Messenger, and the truth of the religion of Islam. He (5) said, “This whole complex is a single assent,” and then added, “This is what Abu’l-Qasim al-Isfarayini has stated.”

I say: The purpose here is not to set out the doctrine ascribed to the Jahmiyyah and the Murjiʾah regarding faith and the contradictions it contains—such as defining faith as the assent lodged in the heart, then stripping it from anyone who withholds verbal confession out of obstinacy, and their claim that every state termed disbelief is so called only because it necessarily entails the absence of that assent. The indication of such absence may sometimes be established by reason and at other times by revelation; for whatever arrogance toward Allah, hatred of Him and His Messenger (6), and the like, may reside in a person’s heart is, in and of itself, unbelief, and as for the assent of which they speak—