they enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in Allah.

A third group combines both tendencies. These constitute most believers: people who have religious devotion as well as desires. Their hearts contain both the desire to obey and the desire to disobey, and sometimes one prevails, sometimes the other.

This threefold division corresponds to the saying that souls are of three kinds: those that urge evil, those at peace, and those that reproach themselves. The first group have souls that urge them to do evil. The second group have souls at peace, of which it is said:

“O soul at peace,
return to your Lord, well pleased and pleasing to Him.
Enter among My servants,
and enter My Paradise.”

The last group have self-reproaching souls: they commit a sin, then reproach themselves for it. They fluctuate between one state and another, mixing righteous deeds with evil ones.

Thus, in the time of Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, whom the Muslims were commanded to follow—as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Follow the two who come after me: Abū Bakr and ‘Umar”—people were closer in time to the prophetic message and greater in faith and righteousness. Their leaders fulfilled their duties more faithfully and were more firmly established in inner peace. Consequently, no strife arose, for they fell within the second category.

Toward the end of ‘Uthmān’s caliphate and during ‘Alī’s caliphate, the third group grew more numerous. Desires and doubts came to coexist in them with faith and religious devotion, and this came to be found among some of the governors