children. Whoever adopts this view is not following what the apparent wording of the Quran indicates, but rather what appears to him concerning something about which the Quran is silent. Its apparentness thus arises from the Quran’s silence about it, not from the Quran indicating it as its apparent meaning. They are therefore holding to an apparent inference from the wording, not to the apparent meaning of the wording itself. Their mainstay is their lack of knowledge of the texts that explain the relevant restrictions. Otherwise, everything the Quran clarifies and makes manifest is true. This is unlike something that appears to a person for a reason other than the Quran itself, yet is called the Quran’s apparent meaning—as in the arguments of the people of innovation among the Murjiʾah, Jahmiyyah, Khawārij, and Shīʿah.

Ahmad said:

“As for someone who claims that faith is verbal profession, what does he say about knowledge? Is knowledge needed alongside verbal profession? Must one also assent to what one knows? If he claims that knowledge is needed alongside verbal profession, then he has claimed that faith consists of two things. If he claims that one must both profess and assent to what one knows, then it consists of three things.

“If, however, he denies this and says that knowledge and assent are not needed, he has made a grave statement. I do not think anyone would reject knowledge and assent, or deeds alongside these things.”

I say: Ahmad, Abū Thawr, and other imams understood the fundamental premise of the Murjiʾah’s position: that part of faith cannot disappear while another part remains. Accordingly, it can only be a single thing, not something consisting of two or three elements. For if it consisted of several elements, some could disappear while others remained. Rather, it must be only a single thing. Hence the Jahmiyyah said that it is a single thing in the heart, while the Karrāmiyyah said that it is a single thing on the tongue. All this was to avoid