who know the Scripture only through mere recitation. Thus you find these people turning away from the Quran and hadith. Among them are groups who do not recite the Quran, such as many of the Rāfidah and the Jahmiyyah; their leaders do not memorize it. Whether they memorize it or not, they do not seek guidance from it. Rather, they either turn away from understanding and reflecting upon it, like the unlettered who know the Scripture only through mere recitation, or distort it through unsound interpretations.

As for hadith, some of them neither know it nor have heard it, and many do not believe it. Even when they believe it, their distortion of it and disregard for it are greater than their distortion of the Quran and disregard for it. Indeed, some groups among them affirm the divine attributes stated in the Quran, whereas, even when they believe a hadith, they do not affirm what it states.

Once it becomes clear that anyone who turns away from the Scripture and opposes it with rational arguments must resort to concealment, lying, distortion, or unlettered ignorance, coupled with a lack of knowledge—and that all these things are blameworthy—it follows that these people are condemned in Allah’s Book, just as Allah condemned their counterparts among the People of the Book. These people and others like them are included in the saying of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, reliably recorded in the authentic collection:

“You will surely follow the ways of those before you, matching them as closely as one arrow feather matches another. Even if they entered a lizard’s burrow, you would enter it too.”

They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, do you mean the Jews and Christians?”

He replied, “Who else?”