And this is as unsound rationally as it is according to revealed law. Such outward conduct is not conclusive evidence, since it also appears in a hypocrite. It serves as evidence only in certain matters pertaining to worldly life, just as words indicate meanings. This is what your position really amounts to. You are therefore told:

It would follow that outward deeds are neither a fruit of inward faith nor a necessary consequence of it or something it entails. For if inward faith itself were what necessitates this outward conduct, its existence would not depend on anything else. An effect that necessarily results from something does not depend on anything else; rather, the existence of the cause necessarily entails the existence of its effect. Thus, if outward conduct were a necessary consequence of inward faith, it would not depend on anything else: whenever the necessitating cause existed, its necessary consequence would exist.

But if outward conduct sometimes accompanies inward faith and is sometimes absent, it could result from that other factor, or it could depend on both together. That other factor would either operate independently of faith or jointly with it. At best, outward conduct would depend on both together: that other factor and faith.

Indeed, outward conduct is known to exist without faith, as in the deeds of a hypocrite. In that case, outward deeds neither necessarily imply faith nor necessarily accompany it. Rather, they sometimes coexist with faith and sometimes with its opposite. Faith would therefore be neither their cause nor what necessitates or entails them. This would invalidate their being evidence of faith, because evidence must necessarily imply what it indicates. And this is indeed true: merely uttering the two testimonies of faith does not necessarily imply the faith that benefits a person before Allah.

Thus, when Sa'd said, “He is a believer,” the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, replied, “Or