horse.” He imagines that saying “definitely” denies Allah’s power to change it. This is ignorance: this horse is definitely a horse in its present state, and Allah is able to change it.
The source of “these people’s misconception” was that the early generations would qualify their affirmation of faith, saying, “I am a believer—if Allah wills.” Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firyābī, al-Bukhārī’s teacher and a companion of al-Thawrī, had settled in the frontier towns of Syria, such as Ashkelon. He was stern towards the Murji’ah and, like his teacher al-Thawrī and others among the early generations, upheld “qualifying one’s affirmation of faith.”
People hold “three views” concerning this qualification. Some prohibit it, as do a group of Hanafis, who say that anyone who uses it is a doubter. Others require it, as do a group of hadith scholars. Still others permit it—or consider it recommended. This is the most balanced view, for the qualification has a valid basis.
Someone who says, “I am a believer, if Allah wills,” believing that faith consists in fulfilling all obligations and fearing that he may not be fulfilling them, has done well. This is why the Companions feared hypocrisy for themselves. Ibn Abī Mulaykah said, “I met thirty of Muhammad’s Companions—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and every one of them feared hypocrisy for himself.”
Likewise, someone who believes that a believer in the unqualified sense is one who deserves Paradise, and therefore adds this qualification out of fear of a bad end, is correct. This is the meaning of the report related from Ibn Mas‘ūd, who was told of a man being asked, “Are you a believer?”