Abu Ishaq said: “I also asked al-Awza‘i, ‘Should we refrain from offering the funeral prayer for anyone among the people of the qiblah, whatever deed he may have committed?’ He replied, ‘No.’ He said: ‘Nor do I testify of anyone after the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, that he is in Paradise. I am a million times more certain of Allah’s mercy for Abu Bakr than I am of His punishment for myself, yet I do not make such a testimony concerning him. And I fear Allah’s punishment for Abu Muslim a million times more than I hope for Allah’s mercy for him, yet I do not make such a testimony concerning him.’
He said: ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab feared hypocrisy for himself.’ I said, ‘They say that Umar did not fear that he was a hypocrite when he asked Hudhayfah; rather, he feared that he might be afflicted with it before he died.’ He replied, ‘This is the doctrine of the people of innovation.’
He said: ‘When al-Zuhri mentioned the hadith, “The fornicator does not commit adultery while he is a believer,” I said to him, “You say: if he is not a believer, then what is he?” He disapproved of that and disliked my asking him about it. I knew the answer, but I only wished to see what he would say. They would narrate the hadiths from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, as they had come, out of reverence for Allah’s sacred limits; and they did not regard sins as disbelief or polytheism ⦗1056⦘.’ He would say: ‘The believer is firm in matters concerning Allah’s sacred limits.’
Al-Awza‘i said regarding a man who is asked, ‘Are you truly a believer?’: ‘Such questioning is an innovation, and testifying to it concerning oneself is an unwarranted probing into matters which we have not been commanded to pursue in our religion, nor has our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, legislated it. Whoever asks about this matter has no precedent to follow except one like himself. To speak in this manner is contentious disputation, and to argue over it is an innovation. By my life, your testifying for yourself does not make it a reality if you are not truly such; nor does your refraining from testifying for yourself remove you from faith if you truly are such. The one who asks you about your faith is not asking in order to learn it from you; rather, he seeks to contest Allah’s knowledge of it, until he claims that Allah’s knowledge and his own knowledge of the matter are equal. So hold fast patiently to the sunnah, stop where the people stopped, say what they said, refrain from what they refrained from, and follow the way of your righteous predecessors; for what sufficed them will suffice you. The people of Syria had remained unaware of this innovation until some of the people of Iraq, who had embraced that innovation, cast it among them ⦗1057⦘.’