which they regard as the truth, and they consider those who disagree with them on it to be disbelievers. They thus come to share, to a marked degree, the traits of the People of the Book in their rejection of the truth and their injustice toward others. Perhaps most of those who declare others disbelievers do so on account of a “statement” whose true meaning is not understood and whose proof is not known.

At the opposite extreme from those who falsely declare others disbelievers are people who do not properly understand the beliefs of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, or who know some of them but are ignorant of others. What they do know, they may fail to explain to people, concealing it instead. They neither forbid innovations that contradict the Quran and Sunnah nor condemn and punish those who follow innovations. Indeed, they may condemn all discussion of the Sunnah and the fundamentals of religion without distinguishing between what the Quran, Sunnah, and scholarly consensus establish and what the adherents of innovation and division say. Or they allow everyone to retain their differing doctrines, just as scholars are allowed their differing views in matters of independent scholarly judgment where disagreement is permissible.

This approach may predominate among many of the Murjiʾah and some students of jurisprudence, Sufis, and philosophers, just as the first approach predominates among many who follow whims and engage in speculative theology. Both approaches are deviant and depart from the Quran and Sunnah.

Rather, what is required is to explain that with which Allah sent His messengers and revealed His scriptures, to convey what the messengers brought from Allah, and to fulfill the covenant Allah took from the scholars. One must therefore know what the messengers brought, believe in it, convey it, and call others to it