of Judgment, while recognizing the difference between what exists in this world and what exists in the Hereafter, and that Allah’s difference from His creation is greater still.

The second group affirmed what Allah has told us about reward and punishment in the Hereafter, but denied much of what He has told us about His attributes. These include certain groups of speculative theologians.

The third group denied both, such as the Qarmatians, the Bātiniyyah (esotericists), philosophers who followed the Peripatetic school, and similar heretics who deny the realities of what Allah has told us about Himself and the Day of Judgment.

Many of them also treat commands and prohibitions in the same way. They claim that prescribed religious duties and forbidden acts have hidden interpretations contrary to what Muslims understand by them. Thus they reinterpret the five daily prayers, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to the House. They say that the five daily prayers mean knowing their secrets, that fasting during Ramadan means concealing their secrets, and that pilgrimage to the House means travelling to their shaykhs.

These and similar interpretations are self-evidently lies and fabrications against the Messengers—may Allah’s blessings be upon them—and distortions of the words of Allah and His Messenger from their proper meanings, as well as deviations from the truth concerning Allah’s signs.

They may also say that religious laws are binding upon ordinary people but not the elite. Thus, when a man becomes