this completeness, though the rest of Hajj is not lost. Likewise, the term “complete human being” encompasses all a person’s limbs. Yet if his hands and feet were amputated, he would still be called a human being, even though he had lost some of what the term encompasses in its complete sense. Similarly, terms such as “tree,” “door,” “house,” “wall,” and others apply to what they designate both when all its parts are intact and after some of its parts have been lost.

This resolves the objection raised against al-Shāfiʿī by al-Rāzī and those who followed him, such as al-Asbahānī and others. Al-Shāfiʿī’s position on this is that of the majority of the scholars of hadith and the early generations. These critics have raised this same flawed objection against the early generations.

Faith also varies in degree according to what the Lawgiver prescribes. What Allah commands of one servant is not identical to what He commands of another, nor is the faith required of one servant identical to that required of another. In the early days of Islam, a man could be a believer whose faith was complete and who deserved reward if he fulfilled what Allah and His Messenger had made obligatory upon him—even though he had not attained the higher degree of assent to what had not yet been revealed of the Quran, had not fasted Ramadan, and had not performed Hajj to the House. Likewise, someone in our own time who embraces faith fully and dies before the time for any prayer becomes due upon him dies having fulfilled all the faith required of him, and deserves reward for that faith.