is well known from al-Hasan and is transmitted from him through several chains. For example, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī related:

Hajjāj narrated to us: Abū ʿUbaydah al-Nājī narrated to us, from al-Hasan, who said:

“Faith is neither outward adornment nor wishful thinking, but what settles firmly in the heart and is confirmed by deeds. Whoever speaks well but acts unrighteously, Allah rejects his words. Whoever speaks well and acts righteously, his deeds raise him up. This is because Allah says:

‘To Him ascends good speech, and righteous deeds raise it up.’”

Ibn Battah also transmitted it through both chains.

By “Faith is not wishful thinking,” he means mere words. By “outward adornment,” he means making faith an outward ornament, displaying it without any corresponding reality in the heart. His meaning is that faith is neither the words one outwardly utters nor the adornment one outwardly displays, but what settles firmly in the heart and is confirmed by deeds. Deeds confirm that there is faith in the heart; when there are no deeds, their absence disproves the presence of faith in the heart. For what is in the heart necessarily entails outward action, and the absence of a necessary consequence indicates the absence of that which entails it.

Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazī related through his chain of transmission that ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān wrote to Saʿīd ibn Jubayr asking him about these matters. He answered him:

“You asked about faith. Faith is accepting the truth: that a servant believes in Allah, His angels, every Book Allah has sent down, every messenger He has sent, and the Last Day. You also asked about accepting the truth. Accepting the truth means that the servant acts upon what he has accepted as true in the Quran. Whenever he lacks the strength to fulfill any part of it and neglects it, he recognizes that this is a sin, seeks Allah’s forgiveness, repents of it, and does not persist in it; that