The early generations used to warn against these two types: those who introduce innovations into their religion and those who are wicked in their worldly lives. Even when neither amounts to outright disbelief, both belong to the sins and misdeeds committed by those who face the qiblah.

Although religious innovations are worse as a category, wickedness is worse from another standpoint. For the sinful believer does not regard wickedness as worse from the other standpoint, in which it is wholly forbidden; nevertheless, it is accompanied by his belief that it is forbidden, and that is something good in his underlying belief. As for the innovator, his innovation necessarily contains both truth and falsehood, but he believes its falsehood to be true as well. Thus, it contains some good that is absent from wickedness, and some evil that is absent from wickedness; the reverse is also true.

Whoever frees himself from forbidden desires and desires born of innovation is assured of Paradise. These are the three: prohibited speech, prohibited food, and prohibited sexual relations. If these major sins are accompanied by considering them lawful, that is one thing; how much worse, then, if they are made into acts of obedience, means of drawing near to Allah, reason, and religion!

Such people deserve the punishment inflicted upon their counterparts among earlier nations. As established in an authentic hadith, some members of this community will be transformed into apes and pigs. It is also reported that some among them will be swallowed by the earth, pelted from above, and transformed.

Some of the early generations said concerning the words of Allah Most High:

“Nor is it far from the wrongdoers.”