subsist in them, so speech does not subsist in anyone other than the speaker. This differs from the speech of the Quran, which, in his view, does not subsist in Allah and therefore cannot be His speech. A fuller discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

The point here is that those among the early generations who said, “Faith is speech and action,” meant the speech of the heart and tongue, and the actions of the heart and limbs. Those who wished to specify belief thought that “speech” would be understood to mean only outward speech, or feared that it might be understood that way, so they added “belief in the heart.”

Those who said, “Speech, action, and intention,” held that “speech” encompasses both belief and the speech of the tongue, whereas “action” might not be understood to include intention, so they added it. Those who added adherence to the Sunnah did so because none of this is beloved to Allah unless it accords with the Sunnah. The others did not mean every kind of speech and action; they meant only those words and deeds prescribed by Allah. Their purpose, however, was to refute the “Murji’ah,” who made faith speech alone, so they said, “Rather, it is speech and action.”

Those who described it as having “four components” explained what they meant. Thus, when Sahl ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Tustarī was asked, “What is faith?” he replied:

“Speech, action, intention, and adherence to the Sunnah. For if faith consists of speech without action, it is disbelief; if it consists of speech and action without intention, it is hypocrisy; and if it consists of speech, action, and intention without adherence to the Sunnah, it is innovation.”