A summary of the concepts held by the Ahl al-Sunnah.
The concept of loyalty and disavowal (al-wala’ wa-l-bara’) between excess and negligence.
Islam is the religion of balance, justice, and moderation, steering between excess and negligence in all matters of creed, worship, and conduct.
Regarding the understanding and application of loyalty and disavowal, people fall into two extremes and a middle path.
The first extreme consists of those who have exaggerated and gone to excess in the matter of loyalty and enmity.
They judge anyone who engages in any transaction with disbelievers as having committed apostasy and disbelief.
They fail to distinguish between loyalty that constitutes disbelief and loyalty that is forbidden but does not reach the level of disbelief.
Indeed, they may judge certain permissible actions—which involve diplomacy or warding off the evil of disbelievers—
as acts of apostasy and disbelief, failing to differentiate between permissible diplomacy and forbidden compromise of one’s faith.
The second extreme consists of those who are negligent and lax, having fallen into showing loyalty to and compromising with disbelievers.
They do so under the guise of diplomacy or precautionary dissimulation (taqiyya), failing to distinguish between what is forbidden and what expels one from the fold of Islam.
In their view, such actions are merely permissible, forbidden, or disliked.
They do not recognize any form of loyalty that would expel one from the fold of Islam.
The middle path is that of the Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jama'ah, the Companions and those who followed them in righteousness until the Day of Judgment.
They believe in the obligation to love Allah, His Messenger, the believers, and everything that Allah loves of faith and righteous deeds.
They also love those whom Allah loves, including His prophets and their believing followers in every age.
Likewise, they believe in the obligation of disavowal and hating everything and everyone that Allah, the Almighty, hates, such as polytheism and its people, and hypocrisy and its people.
As for the sinful and disobedient, they show them loyalty in proportion to the faith they possess.
And they disavow them in proportion to the disobedience they commit.
They do not show them absolute loyalty, nor do they show them absolute disavowal.
Rather, they show them the general loyalty due to all believers while disavowing the sins and disobedience they persist in.
Furthermore, they do not apply a single ruling to all forms of loyalty to disbelievers.
Instead, they hold that some forms expel one from the fold of Islam, such as loving their religion or aiding them against the believers.
Other forms are merely forbidden without reaching the level of disbelief.
They are also moderate in their love for Muslims and in their dislike of them.
They do not exaggerate in their love for certain individuals to the point of sanctification or attributing infallibility to them.
Nor do they exaggerate in their dislike for certain individuals to the point of oppressing them, denying their rights, or failing to treat them with justice.
Or accusing them of things they did not say, believe, or do.