This dispels the confusion concerning this matter. Many people—indeed, most people in many towns—neither regularly observe the five daily prayers nor abandon them altogether. Rather, they sometimes pray and sometimes neglect prayer. Such people possess both faith and hypocrisy, and the outward legal rulings of Islam apply to them regarding inheritance and similar matters. If these rulings apply to an outright hypocrite—such as Ibn Ubayy and other hypocrites like him—then they apply to these people with still greater reason.

Clarifying “this point” helps dispel the confusion. Many jurists suppose that anyone described as an unbeliever must be subject to the rulings governing someone who has openly apostatized: he may neither inherit nor be inherited from, nor enter into marriage with Muslims. They have even applied these rulings to adherents of innovation whom they declared unbelievers on the basis of interpretation. Yet this is not the case. It is established that people fell into “three categories”: a believer; an unbeliever who openly professed unbelief; and a hypocrite who outwardly professed Islam while concealing unbelief.

Among the hypocrites were some whom people recognized through signs and indications—indeed, some whose hypocrisy they did not doubt, and whose hypocrisy the Quran had revealed, such as Ibn Ubayy and others like him. Nevertheless, when these people died, their Muslim heirs inherited from them; and when a relative of theirs died, they were given their share of the inheritance. Their lives remained protected unless one of them became liable to punishment under the revealed law.

When the Harūriyyah rose against ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, may Allah be pleased with him, and separated themselves from the Muslim community, he told them:

“You have the right that we neither bar you from the mosques nor withhold your share of the public revenues (fay’).”

But when they deemed it lawful to kill Muslims and seize their property, he fought them at the command of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace;