is more deserving of being associated with empty verbiage and misguidance than these people? This implies that apostasy occurs among them, just as hypocrisy is widespread among them.

If this concerns obscure doctrines, one may say that a person is mistaken and misguided regarding them, but that the proof on the basis of which he would be judged an unbeliever has not been established against him. Yet among some groups of them, this occurs in evident matters that ordinary Muslims and learned Muslims alike know to belong to the religion of Islam. Indeed, even Jews and Christians know that Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was sent with these teachings and declared those who opposed them to be unbelievers. These include his command to worship Allah alone, without any partner, and his prohibition against worshipping anyone or anything besides Allah—angels, prophets, the sun, the moon, stars, idols, or anything else. This is the most manifest hallmark of Islam. They also include his command to perform the five daily prayers, his making them obligatory, and his emphasis on their great importance; his enmity toward Jews, Christians, polytheists, Sabians, and Magians; and his prohibition of shameful deeds, usury, wine, gambling, and the like.

You then find that many of their leaders have fallen into these things and thus become apostates, although they may repent of them and return to Islam. It has been related of al-Jahm ibn Safwān that he abandoned prayer for forty days, not believing it to be obligatory. They resemble tribal chiefs such as al-Aqra' ibn Hābis, Uyaynah ibn Hisn, and others who apostatized from Islam and subsequently returned to it. Some of these were suspected of hypocrisy and sickness of the heart, while others were not.

Or one may say that, on account of their learning, they resemble Abd Allāh ibn Abī Sarh, who was