From Abu Hurayrah that he used to say: "Faith is like one of your garments, which you put on at one time and take off at another," and from him, elevated to the Prophet:

Eid Abbasi : From Abu Hurayrah that he used to say: "Faith is like one of your garments, which you put on at one time and take off at another," and from him, elevated to the Prophet: , and Ahmad reported from Ibn Abbas that he said to his servants: "Whoever among you desires marriage, we will marry him. No one among you commits zina except that Allah removes the light of faith from him; if He wills to return it, He returns it, and if He wills to withhold it, He withholds it."
The previous hadiths indicate, as far as I can see, that faith is established once or negated once; how is this reconciled with the verses that indicate the increase and decrease of faith? And what is the reasoning behind your citing the hadith of the faith of the one who commits zina as evidence for the Hanafi position on this matter, that faith either exists or does not? This is while it appears to agree with their position, and may Allah reward you with good?

The Shaykh : Give me the paper.
Regarding the first hadith, I do not remember if it is established or not; it is: "Faith is like one of your garments, which you put on at one time and take off at another." I do not know this in reality.

Eid Abbasi : It is mawquf (stopping at a Companion) in any case.

The Shaykh : No, the mawquf is different.

Eid Abbasi : ... from Abu Hurayrah.

The Shaykh : Ah, correct, yes.

Eid Abbasi : ... .

The Shaykh : And there is also the mawquf from Ahmad.
What deserves a comment on this question, in my opinion, is the elevated hadith mentioned by the questioner after the first mawquf hadith narrated from Abu Hurayrah. As for that being mawquf, I do not remember if it is established from Abu Hurayrah or not.
As for the second hadith, which is: from Abu Hurayrah, elevated to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): . This hadith is not a basis for those who hold that faith does not increase or decrease. I hope that the questioner and the listeners, at the same time, are or try to be among those about whom our Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke, saying: ; so one should look at the hadith with a sincere, unbiased view, free from supporting one school over another. If this hadith, as the questioner assumes, supports the Hanafi school, do the Hanafis say that the one who commits zina, who commits zina, becomes a disbeliever? The hadith itself is not what the Hanafis say, contrary to the questioner's assumption. They are the Hanafis themselves, and this is in reality what establishes the argument against them with their own words. They find no explanation for this hadith: which explains this hadith except in the way of the majority of the righteous Salaf, who say that faith is not only belief, but righteous deeds are also included in it. From this comes their other correct belief that faith increases and decreases, and this is explicit in the Noble Qur'an. Therefore, His saying (peace be upon him) in the mentioned hadith: How did the Hanafis themselves interpret it? They said: complete faith. So faith has levels and degrees, and decrease enters into it and increase enters into it. Their interpretation of the hadith is support for the opinion of the majority who say that faith increases and decreases, and that righteous deeds are part of the meaning of faith.
If we know this fact and return to this hadith, this hadith cannot be interpreted according to the school of the majority who say that faith increases and decreases, nor according to the school of the Hanafis who say that faith does not increase or decrease, but rather it is a single reality.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : ... so his saying: , if we look here at two words, first faith, and second the canopy; do we take the word faith in the static meaning that does not accept increase and decrease? This is not what the scholars of the Salaf unanimously say, and here specifically, the Hanafis do not say it either; because if they said: faith departed from him; it means they said the saying of the Khawarij; which is that committing a major sin is exiting the religion, and this, praise be to Allah, is not what the Hanafis say. Therefore, they will be forced to interpret faith here similarly to how they interpreted the other hadith: ; meaning: and he is a believer with complete faith. So here, does all faith depart from him, or the complete faith that necessitates that he does not fall into such a sin?! This is the first interpretation: that we say faith means complete faith, while the faith that saves from eternal abode on the Day of Resurrection is much less than that and saves.
This word should be looked at first to understand the hadith in the correct way. The other word: ; this does not mean that faith departed from him in a way of departure, even if we interpret faith as absolute faith; meaning: faith departed...
Okay, the other word: This does not mean that faith departed from him in a way of departure, even if we interpret faith as absolute faith; meaning: complete and deficient faith departed such that nothing of faith remained in his heart. If we interpret it this way as well, the hadith does not mean that this man's faith departed from him and he was completely separated from it; meaning: that he died a spiritual death; meaning: that he became a disbeliever. No, because it departed from him and remained attached to him like the attachment of the canopy to the one shaded by the canopy. The closest thing we can use to interpret the attachment of faith, in this state, to the owner of this crime is the departure of the soul from a person while he is sleeping. There is a difference between the soul departing from a person while he is sleeping, where he is still alive, but his life is not the natural life of one who is awake, and the opposite of that; the soul departing from the body of a person finally, so his body becomes like a piece of wood. This is how we can distinguish between the departure of all faith from a person, where he dies a spiritual death as the body dies by the complete separation of the soul from it, and that he dies a half-death or some death, if the expression is correct, by this complete faith departing from the person, which is not fitting for this criminal who committed zina. So this is a departure where faith is still attached to its owner, as the soul is still attached to its owner in the state of the body's sleep, and the soul is still attached.
So complete faith departed from him, but it did not depart from him in an absolute way such that he had no connection to it. When he ceases, as it came in the wording, and I think it is "he ceases," faith returns to him. So taking the hadith, in summary, taking the hadith and studying it superficially and externally, this first of all is not the way of the scholars at all, there is no difference between them, between the Maturidiyyah, for example, and the Asha'irah, regarding the issue of faith, its increase and non-increase.
And what does the questioner say about such a sound hadith, which is more authentic than this: ? Do we interpret it literally like this: no faith at all? No one says this, neither a Hanafi nor a Shafi'i. So no complete faith, ; no complete religion, and so on.
Similarly, this hadith should be interpreted considering complete faith first, and an additional point is that it is upon him like a canopy, not completely separated from him; therefore, when he ceases from the sin, this faith returns to its owner; because it was not completely separated from him.
From this explanation and clarification, I think the answer to the questioner's question can be derived when he followed what came before with his statement: "And Ahmad said: It was narrated to us by 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi from Sufyan from Ibrahim al-Muhajir from Mujahid from Ibn 'Abbas that he said to his servants: 'Whoever among you wants to marry, we will marry him. No one among you will commit zina (unlawful sexual intercourse) except that Allah will remove from him the light of faith; if He wills to return it, He will return it, and if He wills to withhold it, He will withhold it'?"
Here, the removal of the light of faith by Allah is clarified; what is removed is not the faith itself, but its light, and this is self-evident.
The questioner says: The previous hadiths indicate, as far as I can see, that faith is either affirmed once or denied once; it is established once or negated once. How can these be reconciled with the verses that indicate the increase of faith?
We have already known, my brother, that the answer is that as long as faith increases and decreases, what is denied is complete faith, not the foundation of faith. And I gave a very clear example earlier: , and there are many similar hadiths, [denying] complete faith. Otherwise, if we took the hadiths and interpreted them as the questioner wants, we would abandon the entire methodology of the people of the Sunnah, despite the disagreement among them regarding the increase and decrease of faith, and we would join the Khawarij who declare Muslims to be disbelievers merely by their committing some of the major sins.