—those who utter words of disbelief—following the procedure for calling an apostate to repentance if he openly professes such a belief; otherwise, his position falls within the doctrines of concealed unbelief and hypocrisy.

If it should be supposed that a person does not realize that such beliefs are contrary to Islam—either because he has only recently embraced Islam or because he was raised among ignorant people who hold similar beliefs—he is like someone who is unaware that prayer, or some part of it, is obligatory; or who believes that religious obligations apply to ordinary people but not to the elect, and that prohibitions such as fornication and wine are permissible for the elect but not for ordinary people.

Many who profess Shiism, as well as many who profess speculative theology, Sufism, or philosophy, have fallen into many of these views. They are false doctrines whose falsehood is well known to people of knowledge and faith and is evident to anyone who is among the people of Islam and knowledge.

[Section on the Rāfidī’s claim that Ali was the authority to whom the Companions turned in their difficult questions, and its refutation]

(Section)

The Rāfidī said (1):

“The Companions would turn (2) to him with their difficult questions, and Umar referred many cases to him, saying (3) concerning them: ‘Had it not been for Ali, Umar would have perished.’”

The response is as follows: The Companions did not refer exclusively to him, or exclusively to anyone else, concerning any matter of the religion, whether clear or difficult. Rather, whenever a new case arose,