The eleventh group of the Murjiʾah consists of the followers of Bishr al-Marīsī. They say that faith is assent, because faith in the linguistic sense means assent, and whatever is not assent is not faith. Bishr claims that assent involves both the heart and the tongue. Ibn al-Rāwandī also held this view. Ibn al-Rāwandī claimed that disbelief consists of denial, rejection, concealment, and covering; nothing can constitute disbelief unless it is disbelief in the linguistic sense, and nothing can constitute faith unless it is faith in the linguistic sense. He claimed that prostrating to the sun is not disbelief, nor is prostrating to anything other than Allah disbelief. Rather, it is a sign of disbelief, because Allah has made clear that only a disbeliever prostrates to the sun.
He said: “The twelfth group of the Murjiʾah is the Karrāmiyyah, the followers of Muhammad ibn Karrām. They claim that faith consists of acknowledgement and assent with the tongue, without the heart. They deny that knowledge in the heart, or anything other than verbal assent, constitutes faith.”
Most of these views that al-Ashʿarī reported from the Murjiʾah imply that, according to them, faith necessarily includes some actions of the heart. Only a small minority disputed this, such as Jahm and al-Sālihī.
In al-Maqālāt, he also presented a summary of the position of the adherents of hadith and the people of the Sunnah. He said:
“In summary, the adherents of hadith and the people of the Sunnah affirm Allah, His angels, His Books, His messengers, what has come from Allah, and what trustworthy narrators have transmitted from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. They reject none of this. They affirm that Allah is one God, unique, the Self-Sufficient, who has taken no consort