Abū Jaʿfar produced an exegesis of this type, yet he also wove into it the doctrine of the Twelver Imāmīs. None of the Muʿtazilites, however, hold that view, nor do they deny the caliphate of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī.

Among the fundamental tenets shared by the Muʿtazila and the Khārijites is their insistence that the threat of punishment in the Hereafter must be fully executed: Allah, they claim, will accept no intercession on behalf of those guilty of major sins, and not one of them will be taken out of the Fire. More than one faction—Murjiʾites, Karrāmiyyah, Kullābiyyah, and their followers—has answered them, at times speaking well and at other times poorly, so that the two sides have ended up at opposite extremes, as has been detailed elsewhere.

Explanation

This sometimes occurs: a person refutes one innovation yet, by placing himself at the other extreme, falls into another. Take, for example, those who hold that one should on ʿĀshūrāʾ enlarge one’s spending on the family and bring them joy and happiness so as to counter the Rāfiḍīs, who turn that day into one of sorrow and mourning. This is mistaken, for an innovation is not to be met with another innovation. It is enough, when faced with an innovation, simply to prohibit it—clarifying that it lacks any legal basis and that every innovation is misguidance. To invent something new in order to offset it is impermissible, of no benefit, and will never eradicate the innovation; only the sunnah can do that.