As for those who disagree over the Book, oppose it, and agree to depart from it, each group makes the principles it has established for its invented religion the guiding authority that must be followed. It treats any texts of the Book and the Sunnah that contradict those principles as ambiguous, equivocal passages that must not be followed. Instead, these passages must be interpreted to conform to their invented principles, or else disregarded without reflecting upon them.

These two characteristics resemble what Allah described in His words:
“Do you then hope that they will believe you, when a group of them used to hear the words of Allah and then knowingly distort them after understanding them? * When they meet those who believe, they say, ‘We believe.’ But when they are alone with one another, they say, ‘Do you tell them what Allah has revealed to you, so that they may use it to argue against you before your Lord? Will you not reason?’ * Do they not know that Allah knows what they conceal and what they reveal? * Among them are unlettered people who know the Scripture only through recitation, and they merely conjecture. * So woe to them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for what they earn.”
[al-Baqarah: 75-79]

Allah has condemned those who distort words from their proper places. This includes anyone who interprets the Book and the Sunnah according to the false innovations he has established as principles. He has also condemned those who know the Book only through recitation. This includes anyone who abandons reflection upon the Quran and knows nothing beyond merely reciting its letters. It also includes anyone who writes a book with his own hand that contradicts Allah’s Book, in order to obtain a religion through it, and says, “It is from Allah”—as when someone says: “This is the revealed law and the religion; this is the meaning of the Book and the Sunnah; and this is