Likewise, their lying in matters of religious knowledge is among the gravest forms of wrongdoing. The same applies to their openly committing sins and religious innovations that undermine trust in their statements, turn people’s hearts away from following them, and lead people to imitate them in those practices. This is among the gravest forms of wrongdoing, and they deserve blame and punishment for it beyond what others deserve for openly engaging in falsehood, sins, and innovations. Although such conduct by someone who is not a scholar causes some harm, it does not cause the same harm as a scholar’s conduct, which obstructs the emergence of truth and brings falsehood to the fore. These scholars’ open wickedness and innovations are comparable to the fighting forces turning away from jihad and from repelling the enemy. This is not like individual combatants turning away, because of the immense harm it causes Muslims.

Thus, scholars’ failure to convey the religion is like the fighting forces’ abandonment of jihad, and the fighting forces’ failure to undertake the fighting required of them is like scholars’ failure to fulfil their duty of conveying the religion. Both are grave sins. This is not like neglecting what the community needs in matters entrusted to them, for neglecting this is graver than failing to pay money owed to its rightful recipient.

The innovations and sins they openly commit—which prevent people from accepting their statements, encourage others to imitate them, and hinder them and others from openly enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong—cause greater harm to the community and to themselves than the same conduct openly committed by others. For this reason, Allah has so fashioned the hearts of the community that they regard a soldier’s cowardice