their souls fear, suffering, and the apprehension and imagining of torment. They claim that this pain arising from such belief and imagination is their punishment and torment, and that it stems from what they believe. This is like someone who believes that a lion, a thief, or a highwayman is nearby when none actually exists, and so suffers pain and harm through fear of the danger he believes to be present. Thus, a belief that does not correspond to reality combines with an object of belief whose existence would cause pain, and the soul suffers through this belief and imagination.

The more sophisticated among these adherents—from among the Ismā‘īlīs, the Qarmatians, and certain people who profess Sufism or engage in speculative theology, who are the extremist Murji’a—may say:

“The warnings of punishment conveyed by the divine Scriptures are merely intended to frighten people into refraining from what they have been forbidden, without there being any reality behind them. This resembles sensible people frightening children and the simple-minded with things that have no reality in order to discipline them. It also resembles a warrior deceiving his enemy by making him imagine something frightening, either to deter him from attacking or to gain power over him, and other such practices.”

These people disbelieve in Allah’s messengers, His Scriptures, and the Last Day, and deny His commands and prohibitions, His promises and His warnings. The examples Allah sets forth in the Quran and the accounts He relates of nations that denied the messengers apply to these people. Sufficient evidence lies in the various exemplary punishments Allah has inflicted in this world upon those guilty of disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience. These are tangible, observable realities that cannot be denied. There is no one who has not heard of various instances of them or witnessed some of them. The people of the earth agree that the condition of a truthful, righteous, and just person is not like that of