and the Book and the sunnah cannot be understood—nor what branches from them—except through a precise knowledge of the Arabic language and its literature. If a student of knowledge has a deficiency in understanding the Arabic language, what helps him to remedy this deficiency is to refer to the understanding of the imams and scholars before him, especially the people of the first three generations who are testified to for their goodness. Let us return to the verse: "And whoever does not judge by what Allāh has revealed, then it is those who are the disbelievers" (Sūrah al-Māʾidah, 5:44). What is meant by disbelief here? Is it leaving the religion, or is it something else? I say: it is necessary to be precise in understanding this verse, as it may mean practical disbelief, which is departing through actions from some rulings of Islam. Assisting us in this understanding is the scholar of the ummah and the interpreter of the Qurʾān, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhumā), whom all Muslims—except those from the misguided sects—agree was a unique imam in interpretation. It is as if he heard at that time exactly what we hear today, that there are people who understand this verse superficially without detail. So he (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu) said: "It is not the disbelief that you are going towards, and it is not disbelief that takes one out of the religion; it is disbelief less than disbelief." Perhaps he meant by this the Khawārij who rebelled against the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAlī (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu), and as a consequence, they shed the blood of the believers and did to them what they did not do to the polytheists. So he said: It is not as they said or as they thought; rather, it is disbelief less than disbelief. This concise and clear answer from the interpreter of the Qurʾān regarding this verse is the ruling that cannot be understood otherwise from the texts I referred to before. Furthermore, the word "disbelief" is mentioned in many Qurʾānic and ḥadīth texts and cannot be carried—in all of them—to mean leaving the religion. For example, the well-known ḥadīth in the Ṣaḥīḥayn from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (raḍiya Allāhu taʿālā ʿanhu) who said: The Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said: "Insulting a Muslim is disobedience and fighting him is disbelief." Here, disbelief is the disobedience that is departing from obedience, but the Messenger (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam), who is the most eloquent of people, emphasized the warning by saying: "...and fighting him is disbelief." On the other hand, can we interpret the first part of this ḥadīth—"Insulting a Muslim is disobedience"—to mean the disobedience mentioned in the third phrase within the previous verse: "And whoever does not judge by what Allāh has revealed, then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient" (Sūrah al-Māʾidah, 5:47)?