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Those among the later scholars who championed Jahm’s doctrine concerning faith said—as did al-Qādī Abū Bakr, whose exact wording follows:

If someone asks, “What is Islam according to you?” he is told: “Islam is compliance and submission. Every act of obedience through which the servant complies with his Lord and submits to His command is Islam. Faith is one of the constituent qualities of Islam. All faith is Islam, but not all Islam is faith.”

If he asks, “Why do you say that Islam means what you have described?” he is told: “Because of the words of Allah Most High:

‘The Bedouins say, “We believe.” Say, “You have not believed; rather, say, ‘We have submitted.’”’

He denied them faith while affirming their Islam. What He affirmed meant only compliance and submission. Another example is His saying:

‘And they offer you peace.’

Anyone who submits to something has surrendered, although this expression is most often used of someone who submits to Allah and His Prophet.”

I say: Besides being false and contrary to the Book and the Sunnah, what they have stated is self-contradictory. They have made faith one of the constituent qualities of Islam: all acts of obedience are Islam, yet none of them is faith except affirmation.

Although the Murji’ah say that faith includes Islam, they maintain that faith is affirmation by the heart and the tongue. The Jahmiyyah, however, make it affirmation by the heart alone. Thus, neither the two testimonies of faith, nor prayer, nor zakat, nor any other such acts form part of faith. And it has already