or a dog, it is called mottling. They regard abandoning all these qualities, or any single one of them, as unbelief. They do not regard faith as divisible or as admitting of increase or decrease.

It is reported that Abū Shimr said, “I do not call a sinner within the religious community a sinner without qualification; rather, I qualify this by saying that he is a sinner in such-and-such a respect.”

Muhammad ibn Shabīb and Abbād ibn Sulaymān report that Abū Shimr used to say that faith consists of knowledge of Allah, acknowledgment of Him and of what has come from Him, and knowledge of justice—meaning with respect to divine decree. Whatever of this is explicitly stated or derived through reason, involving the affirmation of Allah’s justice, the rejection of likening Him to creation, and His oneness, is all faith; knowledge of it is faith. Anyone who doubts it is an unbeliever, and anyone who doubts that the unbelievers are unbelievers is invariably an unbeliever. They do not call knowledge faith unless acknowledgment is known to be present. When both are present, together they constitute faith.

The fifth group of the Murji’ah, the followers of Abū Thawbān, claim