they assert a position and declare whoever asserts it an unbeliever. Many of them do this at one and the same time because they fail to notice the contradiction between the two positions. It also occurs at different times, as their reasoning and efforts to reach the truth change.

The cause of this is the ambiguous terminology introduced by proponents of heresy and misguidance. A person may suppose that such terminology encompasses only truth, whereas it encompasses both truth and falsehood. Whoever fails to examine it closely or ask its speaker to clarify what he means—as the early generations and leading scholars used to do—becomes inconsistent, falls into innovation, and goes astray without realizing it.

Many who used newly introduced, ambiguous expressions such as “body,” “substance,” “accident,” “the inherence of temporally originated events,” and the like thought that they were defending Islam through this approach, thereby establishing knowledge of Allah and belief in His Messenger. Yet they fell into errors and misguidance that produced the foregoing outcome. Such is the condition of the people of innovation, including the Khawārij and their like. An innovation cannot be pure truth in agreement with the Sunnah, for then it would not be falsehood. Nor can it be pure falsehood containing no truth, for then people would readily recognize it for what it is. Rather, it contains both truth and falsehood.

Thus, its adherent has mixed truth with falsehood, either mistakenly and in error, or deliberately because of hypocrisy and heresy within him.