This is frequently found among religious innovators, both those devoted to spiritual aspiration and those engaged in speculative theology. The former accept both truth and falsehood, resembling the Christians; the latter reject both truth and falsehood, resembling the Jews. The religion of Islam and the path of the people of the Quran and faith, however, consist in rejecting what Allah and His Messenger hate, loving what Allah and His Messenger love, affirming truth, and rejecting falsehood.

They are therefore balanced in what they affirm and love: they affirm truth and reject falsehood, love truth and hate falsehood. They affirm what is true and existent, and reject what is false and nonexistent. They love the truth that Allah and His Messenger love—the good that Allah and His Messenger have commanded—and hate the evil that Allah and His Messenger have forbidden. This is the straight path, the path of those whom Allah has blessed: the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous. It is not the path of those who have incurred His wrath, who recognize the truth but neither affirm nor love it, nor that of those who have gone astray, who believe in and love that for which Allah has sent down no authority.

And (the point here) is that this polytheistic, innovated form of love is what has ultimately led these people to regard no good deed as good and no evil deed as evil. This is because they suppose that Allah neither loves anything He commands nor hates anything He forbids. In this respect, they have become like those who deny that Allah loves anything or hates anything, as is the position of the Jahmiyyah, who deny the divine attributes.

One of these people may affirm Allah’s love and pleasure, and his fundamental creed may include affirming the divine attributes. Yet when he comes to divine decree, he affirms nothing but the all-encompassing will. Among those who fell into this were