a particular individual when one of the above-mentioned causes is present—such as sincere repentance, good deeds that wipe out sins, afflictions that expiate, an accepted intercession, and so forth.

Some scholars therefore go so far as to curse a named person, while another group, directly opposed to them, say: on the contrary, we love him for the faith that is still in him and for which he deserves allegiance, for he is not an unbeliever.

The position preferred by the leading Imams is that we neither curse a specific person nor openly profess love for a specific person, for a servant may combine within himself reasons that call for both love and cursing.

Indeed, one of the fundamental principles of Ahl al-Sunnah—by which they part company with the Khawarij (1), the Muʿtazilah (2) and the Murjiʾah (3)—is the conviction that a single individual can possess both merits and faults: he is rewarded for his merits and punished for his faults; he is praised for the former and blamed for the latter. From one angle he is pleasing and beloved, and from another he is detested and reproved. Hence this is the ruling that applies to those who fall into sins.

As for those whose actions stem purely from an admissible interpretation, they are mujtahids who have erred; their error is forgiven. They are nevertheless rewarded for whatever they did well—their honest intention and their diligence in searching for and following the truth—just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “When a judge strives (in ijtihad) and is correct he receives two rewards, and when he strives and errs he receives one reward.”

For that reason, speech about the earliest forerunners and those for whom Paradise has been testified—such as ʿUthman, ʿAli, Talhah, al-Zubayr and the like—falls under a different ruling; and even those below their rank, like the senior companions who gave the pledge at al-Hudaybiyah beneath the tree, who numbered more than one thousand four hundred, come under that same distinction. It is authentically reported in the Sahih that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “None of those who pledged beneath the tree will enter the Fire.”