confusion will give each matter its due and recognize that the best speech is Allah’s speech, that no explanation is more complete than His, and that the matters of religion which Muslims need and upon which they agree far exceed those over which they disagree.
Muslims—both those who follow the Sunnah and those who follow religious innovations—agree on the obligation to believe in Allah, His angels, His Books, His messengers, and the Last Day. They agree on the obligation of prayer, zakah, fasting, and pilgrimage. They agree that whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger will enter Paradise and will not be punished, and that whoever does not believe that Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is Allah’s Messenger to him is a disbeliever. These and similar matters are the foundations of religion and the principles of faith upon which those who profess Islam and faith agree.
Their disagreement, beyond this, concerning certain rulings relating to the threat of punishment or certain meanings of particular terms is a minor matter compared with what they agree upon. Nevertheless, those who oppose the clear truth of the Book and the Sunnah are recognized by the majority of the Muslim community as adherents of religious innovation and are attested to be astray. They enjoy neither an honourable reputation nor general acceptance within the Muslim community, as is the case with the Khawārij, the Rāfidah, the Qadariyyah, and others like them. The disagreements among the people of knowledge and the Sunnah concern only subtle matters that elude most people. Yet whatever they dispute must be referred back to Allah and His Messenger.
Referring “the question of Islam and faith” back to Allah and His Messenger establishes that, although what each of these two terms denotes is obligatory, no one merits Paradise unless he is both a believer and a Muslim. The truth concerning this is what the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, explained in the hadith of Gabriel: he distinguished “three levels” within the religion and among its adherents. The first is Islam, the middle is faith, and the highest is excellence. Whoever reaches the highest level