Are the sects that deviate from the methodology of the People of the Sunnah and the Community our brothers, and do we wish for them what we wish for ourselves, even if they treat the People of the Sunnah with malice and attack them?

Innovations (bid‘ah) vary in their degrees and in the openness with which their proponents proclaim them, and their hostility towards the Sunnah. Consequently, the stance taken against them differs accordingly, and based on considerations of benefit (maslahah) and harm (mafsadah). Regarding the issue of befriending, loving, or allying with them, Ibn Taymiyyah states that a person in whom good and evil are combined deserves alliance and reward according to the good they possess, and hostility and punishment according to the evil they possess. This is the fundamental principle of the Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama‘ah, in contrast to the Khawarij and the Mu‘tazilah.