on the face of the earth; or else it would follow that everyone who simply covers something would have to be branded a disbeliever, for in Arabic the root meaning of kufr is “to cover.” Since all of this is patently false, it is established that the two terms are legal designations which Allah, exalted be He, has transferred from their original linguistic sense and applied to anyone who, after the warning has reached him, rejects any element of Islam out of obstinate defiance of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Allah alone grants success.)

I say: The binding consequence set out in the third argument does not appear to me to be sound, because whoever maintains that shirk is distinct from kufr regards shirk as the more specific of the two. It is well-known that what is specific is subsumed under what is general, just as Christians and Jews are included under “polytheists” according to Ibn Ḥazm in the verse previously cited, and according to other early authorities—the Companions and the Followers—in Allah’s statement: “Do not marry the polytheist women until they believe; a believing slave-girl is better than a polytheist, even though she pleases you. And do not marry the polytheist men until they believe…” (al-Baqarah 2:221).

Thus, everyone who commits shirk has, by unanimous agreement, committed kufr, and the alleged necessary consequence therefore does not hold. Ibn Ḥazm, however, goes further and says the converse as well: everyone who disbelieves through any of the nullifiers of faith has thereby committed shirk. The evidences he marshals support this conclusion, and I am unaware of anything in the Quran or the Sunnah that contradicts it. Indeed, the plain sense of Allah’s words in Sūrat al-Kahf—“And strike for them the parable of two men: to one of them We gave two gardens of grapevines, and We surrounded them with date-palms and placed crops between them…” (18:32)—up to His saying: “He said to his companion, while conversing with him, ‘I am wealthier than you and greater in manpower.’ He entered his garden, wronging himself, and said, ‘I do not think this will ever perish, nor do I think the Hour will come. And even if I am returned to my Lord, I will surely find something better than this as a return.’ His companion said to him, while conversing with him, ‘Do you disbelieve in the One who created you from dust, then from a drop, and then fashioned you into a man? But as for me—He is Allah, my Lord…’”