, submitting to Him—which means refraining from arrogance toward Him—and loving Allah. Whoever possesses all these qualities is a believer. They claimed that Iblīs knew Allah but became a disbeliever through his arrogance toward Allah. This is the view of some followers of Yūnus al-Samarī.

“The fourth group, the followers of Abū Shimr and Yūnus, claim that faith consists of knowing Allah, loving Him, submitting to Him in one’s heart, and affirming that He is One and that nothing is like Him, so long as the proof brought by the prophets has not been established against a person. If the proof brought by the prophets has been established against him, faith entails acknowledging them and affirming their truthfulness; knowing what they have conveyed from Allah is included in faith.

“They do not call any individual quality among these either faith or part of faith until all these qualities come together. Once they come together, they call them faith because they are combined. They liken this to whiteness in an animal: they do not call it piebald unless black is also present. They regard the abandonment of any one of these qualities as disbelief, and do not regard faith as divisible or capable of increasing or decreasing.”

He reported that the fifth group, the followers of Abū Thawbān, hold that faith consists of acknowledging Allah and His messengers, as well as whatever reason holds it necessary to do.

He reported that the sixth group hold that faith consists of knowing Allah, His messengers, and the obligations He has prescribed upon which there is consensus; submitting to Him in all of this; and verbal affirmation. They claimed that each of the qualities of faith is an act of obedience, but that any one of them, if performed without the others, is not an act of obedience—as with knowledge without affirmation. They also held that abandoning any one of these qualities is an act of disobedience, and that a person does not become a disbeliever