Either his belief is unsound: he believes that the apparent meaning of the threat does not reflect its actual meaning and that its purpose is merely deterrence, as the Murji’ah maintain; or that this is forbidden only to ordinary people, not to the spiritual elite, as the Ibāhiyyah (antinomians) maintain; or he holds some similar belief that takes a person outside the fold of Islam.

Or he is heedless and oblivious to the prohibition, the greatness of the Lord, and the severity of His punishment.

Or his desire is so excessive that it overpowers what faith demands and prevents faith from producing its proper effect. His belief thus becomes submerged and overpowered, like reason in someone asleep or intoxicated, or the soul in someone asleep. Clearly, “faith”—faith in its true sense—does not remain as it was, for it is no longer firmly established and manifest in the heart. The unqualified designation “believer” applies only to someone whose faith remains intact and produces its effects.

In some respects, it resembles the soul of someone asleep, for He—glorified is He—“takes souls at the time of their death, and those that have not died during their sleep.” A sleeping person is therefore dead in one respect and alive in another. Likewise, someone intoxicated or unconscious possesses reason in one respect but lacks it in another. If someone says, “An intoxicated person is not rational; when he sobers up, his reason returns to him,” he speaks truthfully, even though we know that such a person is not like an animal: his reason is concealed, whereas the animal has none. Indeed, anger may drive a person to a state in which his reason and judgment desert him. A report states:

“When Allah wills to carry out His decree and ordainment, He deprives those endowed with reason of their reason. Once He has carried out His decree and ordainment, He restores their reason so that they may take heed.”

The reason upon which religious accountability depends has not been taken away. What has been taken away is the reason by which one manages one’s affairs rightly in this world and the Hereafter.