questions of fundamentals, or the fundamentals of religion, or the fundamentals of speculative theology. In these matters, people follow conjecture and their own desires. We have also established what the Quran and Sunnah indicate, in these and other matters, concerning the distinction between someone who believes both inwardly and outwardly and a hypocrite who conceals unbelief, professing faith outwardly but not inwardly. We have likewise established that believers are pardoned for mistakes and forgetfulness.

In most of the sharply divergent disputes in these matters, the truth lies in the middle position: questions of divine oneness and attributes; divine decree and justice; religious designations and rulings; faith and Islam; divine promise and threat; and enjoining right and forbidding wrong, rising against rulers and their ways, or cooperating with them in obedience to Allah. Rulers are to be enjoined to do right and forbidden to do wrong as far as possible, while rebellion and civil strife are to be avoided. The same applies to similar matters subject to partisan passions.

Furthermore, the principal analogy concerning prescribed sequence and continuity is the analogy with prayer. Prayer requires a prescribed sequence: prostration may not precede bowing. It also requires continuity: its parts may not be separated by anything incompatible with it. Moreover, prayer is a single act of worship whose parts are connected, with no interval whatsoever between them that would allow a choice between performing them consecutively or separately. Yet even so, if its parts are separated for a valid excuse, such as extensive movement out of necessity—as in the hadith of Ibn ‘Umar:

“The first group, after praying one rak‘ah, goes to face the enemy. When the second group has prayed the second rak‘ah, it too goes to face the enemy; then back came