Part 77

Someone might ask them [the group of al-Marwazi’s companions]: “Why do you not say: ‘I am an unbeliever, if Allah wills,’ referring to whether you have achieved perfect unbelief, just as you say: ‘I am a believer, Allah willing,’ referring to whether you have achieved perfect belief?” In response they might say that this is because the unbeliever is a denier of the truth, whereas the root of a believer’s belief is tasdiq, assent [of the truth]. Denial has no beginning or end, since based on it, more facts are always anticipated. Belief, on the other hand, has its origin in tasdiq, assent, while confession brings an anticipation of facts related to action on the basis of that which has been confessed and believed. This may be likened to two men who both owe a debt to a third man. The creditor asks one of the other two men to pay him what he owes him, and the man replies: “I owe you nothing,” thereby denying his debt and acting in ingratitude. As a result, [the creditor] is no longer in a position to bring about the fulfillment of what [the other man] said, since he has denied his obligation and acted ungratefully. Then he asks

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the other man to pay what he owes, and he says: “Yes, I owe you such and such.” However, this acknowledgment is not something by which he will obtain what the other man owes until he has actually paid the debt. Hence, the creditor waits for him to fulfill what he has said through action, and to demonstrate the truthfulness of his acknowledgment by carrying out his promise. And if he were to make this acknowledgment, yet still not pay him what he owed, he would be, in effect, like someone who had acted in ingratitude toward him, neglecting to carry out his obligation. And in this way the two debtors would be alike. For the fulfillment of what he has said is for him to pay him what he owes him. If he pays part of it, he will have fulfilled part of what he promised, and will have made good on part of the debt that he acknowledged he owed. And whenever he pays any part of it, he will have fulfilled that much more of what he has pledged. It is the believer’s duty to always carry out whatever obligations he acknowledges he has until the day he dies. And itis for this reason that we say: “I ama believer, Allah willing,” whereas we do not say: “I am an unbeliever, if Allah wills.” .

UNBELIEF IN ALLAH’S GRACE AND THE UNBELIEF OF POLYTHEISM

Muhammad Ibn Nasr said: “Another group of al-Marwazi’s companions held a view something similar to that of the first group [mentioned previously]. However, they called him [the one who disobeyed Allah] a Muslim because of his having seceded from unbelievers’ sects, his testifying that there is no god but Allah, and his belief in what Allah reveals. However, they did not call him a believer. Moreover, they claimed that even if they called him a Muslim, he was still an unbeliever: not one who disbelieves in Allah, but one who had become an unbeliever as a result of a lack of work. Furthermore, they said that the latter type of unbelief did not exclude him from the Islamic community.” For it would be impossible for the Prophet (pbuh) to say: “A fornicator who fornicates is not a believer so long as he commits fornication,” if unbelief were the opposite of Iman. That is, we should not call a disobedient person an unbeliever. When the Prophet (pbuh) negated such a person’s belief by saying: “A fornicator who fornicates is not a believer so long as he commits fornication,” while at the same time unbelief opposes Iman, and this is a contradiction. The only way to solve it is to say that unbelief is of two kinds: unbelief that removes someone from the Muslim community, and unbelief that results from neglecting good deeds. For unbelief

opposes Iman. But unbelief is of two different kinds: unbelief in Allah and what He says [which opposes confession and believing in Allah and His words], and unbelief that is attributed to committing a bad deed [which opposes the kind of Iman that is based on performing righteous works]. Do you not know what the Prophet (pbuh) stated? He said: “He is not a believer whose neighbor is not safe from his mischievous deeds.” Some have said that if one does not believe then he is ina state of unbelief. That could only happen by way of work, since he does not believe in this aspect of work. Thus, he loses sight of what is an obligation upon him and commits a grave sin simply because of his diminishing fear of Allah, which is a result of his losing sight of the Glorification of Allah and His torment. Thus, removing Allah’s Glorification from Iman also results in removing the source of fear and humility. The Prophet (pbuh) also swore: “He is not a believer whose neighbor is not safe from his mischievous deeds.”

Moreover, some have reported from the Prophet (pbuh) that he said: “Cursing a Muslim is sin, and fighting against him.is unbelief;” and “If someone should say to his fellow Muslim, ‘You unbeliever!’ when in fact he is not, then the speaker himself shall be rendered an unbeliever.” Hence, by virtue of such a person’s having fought against his brother, the Prophet (pbuh) called him an unbeliever, and because of his having called a fellow Muslim an unbeliever, he was himself declared an unbeliever. To say such a thing is more serious than fornication, stealing, or drinking alcoholic beverages. Someone might argue with us, claiming that if we called someone an unbeliever, then he must be judged to be the same as all those who blaspheme against Allah, such that we call upon him to repent and -nullify all restrictions that would apply to him as a believer. For if he had blasphemed, then those regulations and restrictions pertaining to believers would no longer apply to him. This also means that the restrictions and regulations pertaining to believers are dropped from consideration when it comes to someone who has committed a major sin. But we have not gone as far [on this question] as some others have. Rather we say: “Belief has both a root and a branch, while against belief there stands kufr, unbelief, in every sense of the word.” The root of belief is verbal testimony and tasdiq, assent, while its branch is the perfection of good works, both those of the heart and those of the body. Against iqrar, verbal testimony, and tasdiq of the sort that is the root of belief stands unbelief in Allah and what He says and abandoning tasdiq in Him and for Him. As for belief of the sort that is action rather than mere verbal testimony, against it also stands unbelief,

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though not the sort of unbelief that excludes one from the community of belief, but rather the kind of unbelief that consists of a failure to act. For action may also be considered a kind of belief, in addition to belief in the sense of a verbal testimony of Allah’s existence and truth. Whoever abandons the belief that is acknowledgment of Allah’s [truth and existence] is an unbeliever who is to be called upon to repent, while everyone who has abandoned belief in the sense of works [such as giving zakah, going on the pilgrimage, fasting during Ramadan, or failing to abstain from drinking alcohol, and committing sexual sin] has also lost a measure of belief; nevertheless, he is not to be called upon to repent, either in our view or in that of the Orthodox Muslims and heretics who, except for the Khiarijites, have disagreed with us, saying that belief is both tasdiq and works. Likewise, if we say that someone is an unbeliever in the sense of having failed to perform certain works, we are not required to call upon him to repent, nor do the restrictions pertaining to believers cease to apply to him, since he has not lost the root of belief, nor is he an unbeliever in the sense of someone who has repudiated Allah or His Revelation.

It is clear that knowledge of Allah is Iman and ignorance of Him is unbelief. Similarly, fulfilling one’s religious obligations is Iman; however, ignorance of them before their being revealed is not unbelief. To clarify this, the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh) testified that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger, but they were ignorant of the obligations that were revealed to them later. Hence, their ignorance was not regarded as unbelief. When Allah revealed the obligations incumbent upon Muslims, they started practicing them. And whoever denies these obligations now is considered an unbeliever because he disbelieves what Allah says. But a Muslim who does not have knowledge of an obligation is not regarded as an unbeliever and ignorance in Allah, in any case, is considered unbelief both before and after they have been informed.

Some have also said that abandoning tasdiq in Allah’s truthfulness is considered unbelief. So is neglect of one’s religious obligations, as well as tasdiq in Allah, which made them obligatory. The latter is considered unbelief in terms of works. In support of this are accounts on the authority of the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh), who spoke of “branches” of unbelief, besides the “root.” These branches do not cause one to secede from the Islamic community. They also speak of

branches of Iman that correspond to works, the abandonment of which does not cause one to cease being a member of the Muslim community. An example is the comment of Ibn ‘Abbas on this verse. Allah says: “. . . If any do fail to judge by what Allah has revealed, indeed those are the unbelievers” (5:44). Muhammad Ibn Nasr said that it was related by [Muhammad] Ibn Yahya, on the authority of Sufyan Ibn “Uyyaynah, on the authority of Hisham Ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Tawis, on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas, who was once asked about the verse in which Allah says: “. . . If any do fail to judge by what Allah has revealed, indeed those are the unbelievers” (5:44). He [Ibn ‘Abbas] said: “This refers to a degree of unbelief.”

Muhammad Ibn Yahya related on the authority of Muhammad Ibn Rafi‘, on the authority of ‘Abd al-Razzaq, that Mu‘ammar informed us, on the authority of Ibn Tawis, on the authority of his father, that Ibn ‘Abbas was asked about the verse mentioned above. He replied: “People such as those [mentioned in the verse quoted above] have a degree of unbelief, but not like that of people who have blasphemed Allah, His Angels, His Books, and His Messengers.”