the Messenger, disbelief and faith are tied to what he brought, not merely to what is known through reason. How, then, can disbelief be made contingent upon matters known only through reason? This could be so only if the revealed law indicated that those matters known only through reason constituted disbelief; in that case, the judgment of the revealed law would be accepted.

Yet it is well known that no such judgment exists in the revealed law. Rather, the revealed law ties disbelief to the same matters to which faith is tied, and both are connected to the Book and the message. There can be no faith while denying the Messenger’s truthfulness and showing hostility towards him, nor can there be disbelief while affirming his truthfulness and obeying him.

Whoever reflects on this will see that the proponents of negation among the people of innovation rely on reasoning of this kind. They introduce innovations based on their own opinions, with no basis in the Book or the Sunnah, then declare anyone who disagrees with their innovations a disbeliever. Such is the case with someone who declares people disbelievers for affirming the names and attributes, which he describes as composition, corporeality, and affirming the inherence of attributes and accidents in Him, and other such notions introduced by the Jahmiyyah and the Mu‘tazilah. They then declared those who disagreed with them on these matters disbelievers.

The Khawārij, who interpreted verses of the Quran and declared those who disagreed with their interpretations disbelievers, were in a better position than these people. The former tied disbelief to the Book and the Sunnah, but misunderstood the texts; the latter tied disbelief to statements for which Allah had revealed no authority.

For this reason, the early generations condemned the Jahmiyyah in the strongest terms. ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mubārak even said:

“We can indeed recount the statements of the Jews and Christians, but we cannot recount the statements of the Jahmiyyah.”