ibn Safwān.” He said:
“The Jahmiyyah claimed that if a person attains knowledge and then denies it verbally, he does not become a disbeliever through that denial; that faith is indivisible and those who possess it do not differ in their degree of faith; and that faith and disbelief exist only in the heart, not in the bodily limbs.”
He said:
“The second group of the Murji’ah claim that faith consists solely of knowing Allah, and disbelief consists solely of ignorance of Him. Thus, faith in Allah is nothing but knowledge of Him, and disbelief in Allah is nothing but ignorance of Him. They maintain that saying, ‘Allah is the third of three,’ is not itself disbelief, but that such a statement can come only from a disbeliever. This is because Allah has declared whoever says it a disbeliever, and the Muslims unanimously agree that only a disbeliever would say it. They claimed that knowing Allah is loving Him and submitting to Him.
“Those who hold this view do not claim that faith in Allah is itself faith in the Messenger. Yet they say that no one believes in Allah unless he believes in the Messenger—not because believing in Allah without believing in the Messenger is impossible, but because the Messenger said:
‘Whoever does not believe in me does not believe in Allah.’
“They also claimed that prayer is not worship of Allah, and that the only worship is faith in Him, which consists of knowing Him. According to them, faith neither increases nor decreases, but is a single quality; the same applies to disbelief. The proponent of this view is Abū al-Husayn al-Sālihī.”
Al-Ash‘arī mentioned this view of al-Sālihī, along with other views, in his book al-Mūjaz (The Compendium), then said:
“With regard to names, I adopt al-Sālihī’s view. As for general and specific application, I do not determine conclusively from the apparent wording of a report that it is general or specific when the language allows either possibility. I suspend judgment on this and do not affirm either general or specific application without revealed guidance or consensus.”
He then said in al-Maqālāt:
“The third group of the Murji’ah claim that faith consists of knowing Allah