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It has already been explained that Allah’s religion takes a middle course between those who go to excess in it and those who fall short of it.

Whenever Allah Most High commands His servants to do something, Satan intervenes in one of two ways, caring little which succeeds: either excess or neglect.

If Satan has obstructed many who profess Islam—the religion of Allah, other than which no religion is accepted from anyone—to the point of drawing them away from many of its ordinances, he has even drawn some of the most devout and scrupulous groups of this community out of it, so that they passed out of it as an arrow passes through its quarry. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, commanded that those who pass out of it be fought. It is authentically reported from him in the collections of authentic hadith and elsewhere, through the Commander of the Believers, “Alī ibn Abī Tālib, Abū Saīd al-Khudrī, Sahl ibn Hunayf, Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī, Sa‘d ibn Abī Waqqās, Abd Allāh ibn Umar, and Ibn Masūd”—may Allah be pleased with them—and others, that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, mentioned the Khawārij and said:

“One of you would consider his prayer insignificant beside their prayer, his fasting beside their fasting, and his recitation beside their recitation. They recite the Quran, but it does not go beyond their throats. They pass out of Islam as an arrow passes through its quarry. Wherever you encounter them, kill them—or fight them—for whoever kills them will have a reward with Allah on the Day of Resurrection. If I live to encounter them, I will surely slay them as ‘Ād were slain.”

In another narration: “The worst of those slain beneath the canopy of heaven; the best