Allah is One and that nothing is like Him, yet rejects the prophets, is an unbeliever because of his rejection of the prophets. Nevertheless, he possesses one quality of faith: his knowledge of Allah. For Allah commanded him to know Him and to acknowledge what he had come to know. If he does not acknowledge it, or knows Allah but rejects His prophets, then in doing so he has fulfilled part of what he was commanded to do. And if everything he was commanded to do constitutes faith, then any single element of it constitutes part of faith.

Muhammad ibn Shabīb and all the other Murji’ah whose views we have already described claimed that major sinners among those who pray, know Allah and His messengers, and acknowledge Him and His messengers are believers by virtue of the faith they possess and sinners by virtue of their sinfulness.

The ninth group of the Murji’ah consists of Abū Hanīfah and his followers. They claim that faith consists in knowing Allah and acknowledging Him, knowing the Messenger, and affirming what has come from Allah in general terms rather than in detail.

He said: Abū ʿUthmān al-Ādamī also related that a meeting took place between Abū Hanīfah