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As for “qualifying one’s profession of faith” by saying, “I am a believer, if Allah wills,” people hold “three” views: some consider it obligatory, some prohibit it, and some permit either course according to two different considerations. This last view is the soundest.
Those who prohibit it are the Murji’ah, the Jahmiyyah, and others like them who regard faith as a single thing that a person knows he possesses, such as affirmation of the Lord and similar convictions within his heart. One of them says:
“I know that I am a believer just as I know that I have pronounced the two testimonies of faith, that I have recited al-Fātihah, that I love the Messenger of Allah, and that I hate the Jews and Christians. My saying, ‘I am a believer,’ is therefore like my saying, ‘I am a Muslim,’ or, ‘I have pronounced the two testimonies of faith and recited al-Fātihah,’ or, ‘I hate the Jews and Christians,’ and similar present realities that I know with certainty. Just as it is not permissible to say, ‘I have recited al-Fātihah, if Allah wills,’ neither should one say, ‘I am a believer, if Allah wills.’ But if someone is uncertain about it, he says, ‘I did it, if Allah wills.’”
They said that whoever qualifies his profession of faith in this way doubts his faith, and they called such people “the doubters.”
Those who consider this qualification obligatory base their view on two grounds. The first is that faith is the faith upon which a person dies; and a person is only