Imitation and effort

Because issues of the fundamentals of religion were a matter of dispute among the different sects of the nation, whereas jurisprudential matters, where disagreement is considered a dispute over uncertain details, the fundamentals of religion were regarded as definitive and certain principles, including the contentious issues among Islamic sects. Therefore, these sects required certainty in belief, for the follower who was obliged by most to consider and infer from general evidence, and for the mujtahid who was obliged to attain the truth in all matters of belief at all levels. Whoever deviated from this was judged to be an apostate or a sinner and an innovator. At a time when the concept of "the fundamentals of religion" among the majority of theologians — Mu'tazilites and Ash'arites — became synonymous with the principles of the school, and the concept of "knowledge" became synonymous with certainty and conviction conditioned by consideration and inference, the prohibition of imitation and independent reasoning in the fundamentals of religion became an inevitable conclusion; for there is no effort in the definitive, and imitation is not a way to it.