Here there are questions that the jurists have discussed: what of someone who prays without uttering the two declarations of faith, or performs some other act distinctive to Islam without uttering them? The correct view is that a person becomes Muslim through anything distinctive to Islam.

If these people say, “By calling it the first obligation, we mean that it is the first obligation a person fulfils,” the answer is:

“He may have fulfilled obligations before that, such as repaying debts, returning things entrusted to him, maintaining ties of kinship, acting justly, and so forth.”

If it is said, “But this is the first obligation for which one receives reward in the Hereafter, unlike anything performed without it, for which there is no reward in the Hereafter,” the answer is:

“Given our position that obligations and reward in the Hereafter are established only through revelation, neither this nor those other acts earn reward before revelation comes, and neither is obligatory except through revelation. When the Lawgiver addresses people, He initially commands a person to fulfil only those obligations he has not already fulfilled, not those he has already fulfilled.”

Thus, He did not initially command the polytheists to acquire knowledge, since they already acknowledged the Creator. Rather, He commanded them to make the two declarations of faith. Even if they had not acknowledged the Creator, He would not have commanded them to make an acknowledgement separate from the two declarations of faith; rather, He would have commanded them to make the two declarations of faith from the outset.

The two declarations of faith encompass knowledge,