and Ibn 'Uyaynah, most of the scholars of Kufa, Yahyā ibn Sa'īd al-Qattān—as he reports from the scholars of Basra—and Ahmad ibn Hanbal and other imams of the Sunnah—they would qualify their affirmation of faith with “if Allah wills.”

This is established from them by mass transmission. Yet none of them said: “I make this qualification on account of one’s final state, and because faith refers only to that with which a servant meets his Lord.” Rather, their leading scholars explicitly stated that they made this qualification because faith includes performing obligatory duties. They would therefore not attest to having fulfilled these, just as they would not attest to their own righteousness and piety. This is something they do not know, and doing so would amount to declaring themselves pure without knowledge. We shall mention their statements on this, if Allah wills.

As for one’s final state, I know of none of the early scholars who explained the qualification on this basis. However, many later hadith scholars among the followers of Ahmad, Mālik, al-Shāfi'ī, and others do explain it this way, as do their theologians, such as Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī and most of his followers. But this is not the position of the early hadith scholars.

He then said:

“If someone asks: ‘If you say that the faith commanded in religious law is what you have described, together with its conditions, and that this is not derived from language, how can you consistently maintain that faith retains its linguistic meaning?’

We reply: ‘Faith means assent, both linguistically and in religious law. However, religious law has added qualities and conditions to assent; taken together, these receive reward and acceptance. This is like what we have said concerning prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and similar acts. Prayer, in its linguistic sense, means supplication, but religious law has added conditions to it.’”

It may be said in reply: This contradicts what they have stated concerning what the term “faith” denotes. For when they claimed that its linguistic meaning is assent and that religious law has not changed it, they raised the following objection against themselves: