This was also their answer to the following argument. When they were told, “Muslims unanimously agree that when an unbeliever wishes to embrace Islam, his profession of the two testimonies of faith suffices,” they replied:

“We accept that from him only in order to accord him the legal status of a Muslim, for the Lawgiver has made it a sign upon which the legal rulings are applied. Had that constituted true faith, He would not have said concerning the women who emigrated:

‘O you who believe, when believing women come to you as emigrants, test them. Allah knows best their faith.’”

He then says: “Anyone who leaves another religion and joins ours must have something that prompts him to do so. If he is prompted by his knowledge of the falsity of his religion and creed and the truth of Islam, this much suffices as rational reflection and inference in general terms. But if he is prompted by fear of us, or by a desire for the wealth and other things Allah has given us, then his emigration is for whatever he emigrated for.”

[Continuation of Ibn Hazm’s discussion]

Abū Muhammad said:

“If they ask, ‘What need, then, did people have of signs and miracles, of Allah’s establishing proof against them through the Quran and its inimitability, of calling the Jews to wish for death, of calling the Christians to mutual imprecation, or of the splitting of the moon?’ we reply: