religion; hence, anyone who disputed it was deemed an innovator. Likewise, his position concerning the “Shia” who give Ali precedence over Abū Bakr is consistent: they are not to be declared disbelievers, since this is also the view of a group of jurists, although they are deemed innovators.

As for the “Qadariyyah” who affirm Allah’s knowledge, the “Rāfidah” who are not extremists, the Jahmiyyah, and the Khawārij, two positions are reported from him concerning whether they are to be declared disbelievers. This is the actual purport of his general statements, although his predominant stance was to refrain from declaring the Qadariyyah who affirm Allah’s knowledge and the Khawārij disbelievers, despite his statement: “I know of no people worse than the Khawārij.”

Some of his followers, however, report two positions from him concerning the declaration of adherents of innovation as disbelievers generally, even including the Murji’ah in this. Yet that is not the case. Two positions are also reported from him concerning whether someone who does not declare them disbelievers is himself a disbeliever; the sounder position is that he is not. Some of his followers may present this disagreement concerning someone who does not declare others disbelievers as applying without qualification. This is an outright error.

According to many of the early scholars—such as Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Yūsuf ibn Asbāt, and a group of Imam Ahmad’s followers and others—the Jahmiyyah are not among the seventy-two sects into which this community divided. Rather, in their view, the main groups from which these sects arose are the Khawārij, the Shia, the Murji’ah, and the Qadariyyah. This is what is transmitted