been made clear above, through what Allah and His Messenger have explained, that Islam is included in faith: a man cannot be a believer until he is a Muslim. Likewise, faith is included in spiritual excellence: a person cannot attain spiritual excellence until he is a believer.

As for the contradiction, when they say, “Faith is one of the constituent qualities of Islam,” someone who possesses faith has attained only one of those qualities, not the entirety of the Islam that is obligatory. He therefore cannot be a Muslim until he fulfils Islam in its entirety, just as, according to them, he cannot be a believer until he possesses faith in its entirety. Otherwise, someone who possesses only part of faith is, according to them, neither a believer nor possessed of any faith at all. They must therefore say the same about Islam.

Yet they have said, “All faith is Islam, but not all Islam is faith.” If they mean that all faith constitutes the Islam that Allah has commanded, this contradicts their statement that faith is one of its constituent qualities: they have made faith part of Islam, not identical with it. But if they say, “All faith is Islam,” meaning that it is obedience to Allah and part of the Islam that is obligatory—and this is what they mean—then they should be told:

On this basis, there would be as many instances of Islam as there are acts of obedience. The two testimonies of faith alone would constitute Islam; prayer alone would constitute Islam; and zakat would constitute Islam. Indeed, every dirham you give to a poor person would constitute Islam, every prostration would constitute Islam, every day you fast would constitute Islam, and every glorification of Allah you utter, whether during prayer or otherwise, would constitute Islam.

Now, if a person cannot be a Muslim unless he performs everything you have called Islam, it necessarily follows that the defiantly sinful are not Muslims, even though they are believers. Thus you have made believers with complete