When it concerns subtle doctrines, it may be said that a person is mistaken and misguided in them, but that the proof on the basis of which he would be deemed an unbeliever has not been established against him. Yet among some groups of them, this occurs even in manifest matters which learned and ordinary Muslims alike know to belong to their religion. Indeed, even Jews, Christians, and polytheists know that Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was sent with these teachings and that whoever opposes them is an unbeliever. These include his command to worship Allah alone, without partner, and his prohibition against worshipping anyone besides Allah, whether angels, prophets, or others—for this is the most evident distinguishing feature of Islam. They also include enmity towards Jews, Christians, and polytheists, and the prohibition of sexual immorality, usury, intoxicants, gambling, and similar things.

Yet you find that many of their leaders have fallen into these kinds of unbelief and thus become apostates, although they may repent of this and return to Islam. They resemble tribal leaders such as al-Aqraʿ, ʿUyayna, and others who apostatized from Islam and then re-entered it. Some of those tribal leaders were suspected of hypocrisy and sickness of the heart, while others were not. Many of these people’s leaders are likewise: at one time you find a man openly apostatizing from Islam, and at another returning to it, but with sickness and hypocrisy in his heart. He may also have a third state in which faith prevails over hypocrisy. Yet they rarely remain free of some form of hypocrisy, and accounts of this concerning them are well known.

Ibn Qutayba mentioned some of this at the beginning of Mukhtalif al-Hadīth (Conflicting Hadiths). Writers on doctrines have also related some such accounts about one another, as recounted by