of a specific kind, just as prayer is supplication of a specific kind, pilgrimage is purposeful travel of a specific kind, and fasting is abstention of a specific kind. This affirmation has necessary consequences that become part of what the term denotes when used without qualification. For if a necessary consequence is absent, that which entails it must also be absent. The remaining dispute is therefore verbal: does faith signify deeds as part of its meaning or as a necessary implication?

It should be understood that most disagreement among Ahl al-Sunnah on this issue is verbal. The jurists who say that faith consists of words—such as Hammād ibn Abī Sulaymān, the first to express this view, and his followers in Kufa and elsewhere—agree with all Sunni scholars that sinners are subject to blame and the threat of punishment. Even though they say that these sinners’ faith is complete, like Gabriel’s faith, they maintain that someone who has faith but neglects obligatory deeds and commits forbidden acts deserves blame and punishment, just as the Sunni community maintains. They also hold that some who commit major sins will enter the Fire, as the Sunni community maintains. Those among Ahl al-Sunnah who withhold the designation of faith from an evildoer agree that he will not remain in the Fire forever.

Thus, the jurists of the Muslim community do not disagree concerning sinners who inwardly and outwardly acknowledge what the Messenger brought and what has been transmitted from him through numerous independent chains: they are subject to the threat of punishment; those among them whom Allah and His Messenger have declared will enter the Fire will enter it; none of them will remain there forever; and they are not apostates whose blood may lawfully be shed.

Rather, the “deviant positions” are the view that they will remain in the Fire forever, as held by the Khawārij and the Muʿtazilah, and the view of the extreme Murjiʾah, who say: “We do not know that any of them will enter the Fire; rather, we suspend judgment on all of this.” Some of the extreme Murjiʾah are reported to have categorically denied that any of them will enter the Fire.