that disbelief in Allah is ignorance of Him. This is a view attributed to Jahm ibn Safwān.”

He continued:

“The Jahmiyya claimed that if a person attains this knowledge and then voices a denial, that denial does not make him an unbeliever; that faith is indivisible and those who possess it do not differ in their degree of faith; and that faith and disbelief reside only in the heart, not in any other bodily organ.

The second sect of the Murjiʾa claims that faith is knowledge of Allah alone, and disbelief is ignorance of Him alone. Thus, there is no faith in Allah except through knowledge of Him, and no disbelief in Allah other than ignorance of Him. They hold that saying ‘Allah is the third of three’ is not disbelief, yet such a statement comes only from an unbeliever. This is because Allah Most High has declared whoever says this an unbeliever, and the Muslims unanimously agree that only an unbeliever says it.

They claimed that knowledge of Allah Most High is love for Him and submission to Him. The proponents of this view do not claim that faith in Allah is itself faith in the Messenger. They do maintain, however, that once the Messenger has come, no one is a believer in Allah unless he believes in the Messenger—not because the alternative is impossible, but because the Messenger said, ‘Whoever does not believe in me is not a believer in Allah.’

They also claimed that prayer is not worship of Allah, and that there is no worship other than faith in Him, which is knowledge of Him. According to them, faith neither increases nor decreases: it is a single quality, and the same applies to disbelief.