1025 - Abd al-Malik al-Maymuni informed us, saying: Mu'awiyah narrated to us—I believe it is from Abu Ishaq—who said: Al-Awza'i said, and he mentioned the companions of His Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, whom He chose for him and sent him among them, and described them with that with which He described them, so He said: {Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are severe against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and prostrating, seeking bounty from Allah and [His] pleasure} [Al-Fath: 29]. "And they say that the obligatory duties of Allah—Exalted and Majestic is He—upon His servants are not part of faith, and that faith may be sought without action." He said: "And that people do not vary in their faith, and that their righteous and their wicked are equal in faith. But this is not how the Hadith came from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace; it has reached us that he said: 'Faith consists of seventy-something, or he said: sixty-something parts, the highest of which is the testimony that there is no god but Allah, and the lowest of which is the removal of harmful objects from the path, and modesty is a branch of faith.'" And Allah—Exalted and Majestic is He—said: {He has ordained for you of religion what He enjoined upon Noah and that which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what We enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus - to establish the religion and not be divided therein} [Al-Shura: 13]. Religion is belief, and it is faith and action. Allah—Exalted and Majestic is He—described religion as both speech and action, saying: {But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, then they are your brothers in religion} [Al-Tawbah: 11]. Repentance is from polytheism, and it is part of faith, while prayer and zakah are action."