this hadith: “Whoever does not believe this hadith should read this verse: ‘Indeed, Allah does not wrong anyone by so much as an atom’s weight...’”

In terms of his abandonment of prayer, he resembles the disbelievers in deed—those who will lament on the Day of Resurrection, saying while they are in the Blaze: “We were not among those who prayed, nor did we feed the poor.” His disbelief, therefore, is practical disbelief, because he has committed the deeds of the disbelievers. He is like one who withholds zakah. It is also authentically reported that the one who withholds zakah will be punished with the wealth from which he withheld it on the Day of Resurrection, and will then be led either to Paradise or to the Fire. Yet the author mentioned above—may Allah guide both him and us—interpreted this hadith, just as he interpreted the hadith concerning the one who withholds zakah, in a manner that nullified its explicit indication of the distinction we have maintained between doctrinal disbelief and practical disbelief. This distinction is authentically reported from Ibn ‘Abbas and some of his students, and was followed by those after them among the followers of the righteous early generations, such as Ibn al-Qayyim and his teacher, as noted earlier in this study. Nevertheless, the person referred to did not address it at all, not even to refute it—and he has no way of doing so. Allah says: “Shall We then treat the Muslims like the criminals? What is the matter with you? How do you judge?”

Likewise, the aforementioned author disregarded the hadith: “Islam has waymarks...” which explicitly distinguishes between “whoever abandons one component has abandoned a component of Islam” and “whoever abandons all the components has cast off Islam altogether.” He offered no response to it. Nor would I be surprised if he attempted to interpret it away or declare it weak, as he did with other authentic hadiths.

In sum, there is a very broad scope for responding to him. I do not know when I will have the opportunity to respond to him and explain the points open to criticism in his work, both jurisprudentially and in hadith terms. Even so, I thank him for his courtesy, kindness, esteem for the writer of these lines, and his defense of the creed of the scholars of hadith that faith increases and decreases—although this has at times been accompanied by a measure of excess, divergence, and the accusation of Murji’ism, despite his knowing that I fundamentally differ from the Murji’ah. For I say: Faith increases and decreases, and that