The third response is that it is well known that among both groups are people who may affirm both positions, although the two are in fact contradictory. They nevertheless fall into two categories: those who recognize the contradiction but profess one of the positions, either in hope of gain or out of fear, and those who do not recognize the contradiction. There is no doubt about this.

For we know many of the Jahmiyyah who deny Allah’s attributes, saying, “Affirming these amounts to ascribing a body to Allah, and Allah is not a body.” They outwardly profess Islam, yet inwardly do not acknowledge that the Quran is true and whatever contradicts it is false. Nor do they acknowledge that Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger to all creation, that Allah alone, without partner, must be worshipped, or the Hereafter of which Allah has told us in His Book.

Indeed, some groups among them regard Judaism, the religion of the Sabians, and polytheism as religions that, like Islam, are not forbidden and whose adherents are not unbelievers. Some of these people consider Islam superior to all these other religions, while others do not.

There are also groups among them who believe that the prophets are merely wise and virtuous human beings, comparable to kings endowed with knowledge and justice, and that obedience to them is obligatory only in outward affairs and matters of governance that maintain order in worldly life. As for inward religious matters beneficial in the Hereafter, whether knowledge or deeds, they claim to know more about these than the prophets and messengers, or as much as they do, and to have no need of the messengers in these matters. Among them are also groups whose denial of the Creator of the world