And since there is unanimity between Muslims on this...

And since there is unanimity between Muslims on this, He will not break His promise insofar as punishment is concerned. Therefore, God will fulfil all the threats with punishment issued to the godless and the debauchee, unless they repent in their lifetime. Thus, repentance without forgiveness is not possible. According to the Mu’tazilites, this would entail withholding the threat, which can be equated with breaking the promise of reward, i.e.

if they were true, they would necessarily be both repugnant and inconceivable. This belief of the Mu’tazilites stemmed from the question of rational good and repugnance, which is linked to the issue of forgiveness. The middle way The tenet of the Mu’tazilites of the middle way came as a reaction to two beliefs, which were dominant in the world of Islam then, i.e. unbelief/belief of the fasiq (godless).

The Kharijites were the first ones to hold that committing a cardinal sin is akin to unbelief (kufr). As is known, the Kharijites were catapulted on the Islamic ideological scene after the incident of “arbitration” ( tahkeem ) in Siffeen war [ between the then Caliph, Imam Ali (a.s.) and Mu’awiyah, the then governor of Shaam (Syria) ] in the first half of the first century of the Islamic era, i.e. circa 37 H.

It has been reported in Nahjul Balagha (The path of eloquence) [ a collection of Imam Ali’s sermons, letters, axioms, etc. ] that the Imam (a.s.) engaged them in debate and refuted their claim with conclusive evidence. After the rule of Imam Ali (a.s.), the Kharijites took a hostile position vis-à- vis all the rulers that came after him.

They took it upon themselves to uphold the duty of “enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil” to the letter; they were as well the proponents of declaring people godless and unbelievers (at-tafseeq wat-takfeer). And since the majority of the caliphs were committing cardinal sins, the Kharijites branded them unbelievers. That is why they were always on the opposite side of the policies of the ruling establishment.

In opposition to the Kharijites there appeared another sect known by the Murji’ites (Procrastinators), or should we say the ruling establishment established it. They teach that the judgement of every true believer, who has been guilty of a grievous sin, will be deferred [yurj’a, hence the name murji’a], or left in a state of suspension, till resurrection.