with respect to those who commit sins occurs only in statements of warning and censure, not in commands and prohibitions or in rulings pertaining to this world.

The designations of Islam, faith, and excellence are praiseworthy and desirable because of the good outcome awaiting those who possess these qualities. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, explained that this good outcome belongs to those who possess them in the manner he described. Thus, whoever denied them faith—or both faith and Islam—without declaring them disbelievers denied these only with regard to the rulings of the Hereafter, namely reward, not with regard to worldly rulings.

The Muʿtazilah, however, thought that when the designation was denied, all its constituent parts were denied as well. They therefore held that such people possessed no faith or Islam whatsoever and would remain in the Fire forever. This contradicts the Quran, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early generations. Had they possessed nothing of faith or Islam, none of the rulings applicable to believers and Muslims would have applied to them; rather, they would have been like the hypocrites.

Yet the Quran, the Sunnah, and scholarly consensus establish a distinction between the hypocrite who inwardly rejects the Messenger’s truthfulness and the sinful believer. The Muʿtazilah thus equated those who commit sins with the hypocrites in the rulings of this world and the Hereafter, denying them Islam and faith. Indeed, they may affirm these outwardly for the hypocrite while denying them to the sinner both inwardly and outwardly.

If it is said:

If every believer is a Muslim, but not every Muslim is a believer—with complete faith—as indicated by the hadith of Gabriel and other hadiths, together with the Quran, and as has been related from the aforementioned early authorities, since Islam consists of outward acts of obedience and means surrender and submission—for “Islam in its original sense” means surrender and submission