The third principle is al-manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn, “the intermediate position between the two states.” To clarify what they mean, let us offer an example: one man is diligent in obedience and avoids sins; a second is a believer who commits major sins; and a third is an outright unbeliever. Are the three to be treated alike? If you reply, “Of course not,” they conclude, “Then this believer who commits grave sins occupies a position between the two. We do not call him a believer, nor do we call him an unbeliever.”

The fourth principle is the execution of the threat (infādh al-waʿīd). They maintain that Allah has threatened those who commit sins that do not expel a person from Islam, as in His words: “Whoever kills a believer deliberately—his recompense is Hell, wherein he will abide forever. Allah is angry with him, has cursed him, and prepared for him a tremendous punishment” (al-Nisāʾ 4:93); and in the Prophet’s saying, “Three types of people will never enter Paradise: the persistent drunkard, the one who severs family ties, and the one who reminds others of what he has given” (1); and his saying, “Three people Allah will neither speak to on the Day of Resurrection, nor look at, nor purify, and they will have a painful punishment: the man who lets his garment trail below his ankles, the one who boasts of his charity, and the merchant who markets his goods with false oaths” (2). They declare, “We must carry out these threats, for the One who issued them is Allah, and He is fully able; therefore they must inevitably be fulfilled.”

The fifth principle is commanding what is right and forbidding what is wrong. This is, without doubt, a noble principle; yet we shall soon see the false meaning they attach to it and how they beguile the people through it.