they saw Our punishment”—to the end of the verse. He explained that repentance after witnessing the punishment is of no benefit, and that this is Allah’s established way with His servants, such as Pharaoh and others. The hadith states:

“Allah accepts His servant’s repentance so long as the death rattle has not begun.”

Another narration reads:

“So long as he has not directly witnessed the realities of the Hereafter.”

It is established in the two Sahīh collections that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, called his uncle to affirm Allah’s oneness during the illness from which he died. He also visited a Jewish man who used to serve him when he was ill and invited him to embrace Islam. The man accepted Islam, whereupon he said, “Praise be to Allah, who saved him from the Fire through me.” He then said to his Companions, “Take your brother into your care.”

Further evidence that the comprehensive forgiveness mentioned in Sūrat al-Zumar is for those who repent is His statement in Sūrat al-Nisā’:

“Indeed, Allah does not forgive associating partners with Him, but He forgives anything less than that for whomever He wills.”

Here He restricted forgiveness to sins less than associating partners with Him and made it dependent upon His will, whereas there He left it unrestricted and all-encompassing. This restriction and qualification indicate that this passage concerns someone who has not repented. Accordingly, Ahl al-Sunnah cite this verse as evidence that those guilty of major sins may, in principle, be forgiven, contrary to the Khawārij and Mu‘tazilah, who maintain that the threatened punishment must be carried out against them.

Nevertheless, among those who oppose them, a faction of the Murji’ah went to excess, to the point of withholding judgment on whether the threatened punishment would befall anyone who faces the qiblah in prayer. Their extremists are even reported to have denied this altogether. Allah’s religion is a middle course between those who go to excess in it and those who fall short of it. The texts of the Quran and Sunnah, together with the consensus of the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars, all affirm that among those guilty of major sins