a believer. Whoever commits sins short of major sins we call a believer deficient in faith.’”

The proponent of this view argues as follows:

Since the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, denied him faith, I deny him faith just as the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did. The Messenger denied it only to someone who committed a major sin. As for a believer who commits a minor sin, it is expiated through his good deeds and his avoidance of major sins. Nevertheless, his faith is deficient compared with that of someone who avoids minor sins. He has therefore not fulfilled the faith required of him, but has mixed it with sins that are expiated through other deeds. His rank is consequently lower than that of someone who has not committed such sins.

As for those to whom the Messenger denied faith, we deny it to them just as the Messenger did. Although they possess assent and the foundation of faith, they have abandoned enough of its requirements to deserve being denied the designation of faith. Hypocrisy and faith, or disbelief and faith, may coexist in a person. According to those who hold this view, faith without qualification is that which entitles its possessor to the promise of Paradise.

Various groups among the “followers of desires”—the Khārijites, Mu‘tazilites, Jahmiyyah, and Murji’ah, both Karrāmī and non-Karrāmī—say that faith and hypocrisy cannot coexist in a person. Some even claim consensus on this. Abū al-Hasan mentioned such a consensus in some of his books. This is where they went wrong, contradicting the Quran, the Sunnah, and the reports from the Companions and those who followed them in righteousness, as well as plain reason.

Indeed, the Khārijites and Mu‘tazilites carried this false principle through consistently, saying:

A single person cannot combine an act of obedience for which he deserves reward with an act of disobedience for which he deserves punishment. Nor can the same person be praiseworthy in one respect and blameworthy in