and this, too, encompasses good and evil; yet what concerns us—the two accountable species, humankind and the jinn whom Allah Almighty has commanded—is to examine the actions we ourselves perform. Each deed is either carried out of our own pure will and choice, or it occurs against our will. The latter type entails neither obedience nor sin, and its consequence is neither Paradise nor Hell. Rather, it is the former type around which the legal rulings revolve, and upon it rests a person’s reward of Paradise or punishment of Hell. In other words, whatever a person does voluntarily, pursuing it through his own effort and choice, is what he will be called to account for: if it is good, then for good; if it is evil, then for evil.

That a human being is free to choose in a large portion of his deeds is a fact that can be disputed neither scripturally nor rationally.

Scripturally, the texts of the Quran and the Sunnah are mutawātir in commanding a person to perform what he has been ordered to do and to refrain from what he has been forbidden; these texts are too numerous to enumerate.

Rationally, it is clear to anyone unclouded by passion or bias that when he speaks, when he walks, when he eats, or when he drinks,