‘…if they do that?’ I replied, ‘Allah and His Messenger know best.’ He said, ‘Their right upon Him is that He will not punish them.’(1)

This is a right made binding by His perfect words and His truthful promise.(2)

The scholars are unanimous that whatever is affirmed by His truthful promise is indeed obligatory. They have differed, however, over whether He obligates something upon Himself in and of Himself, holding two views on the matter. Those who allow it cite as evidence His statement, Exalted is He,

“Your Lord has prescribed mercy for Himself”
(al-Anʿām 6:54),

and the sound ḥadīth: “I have forbidden oppression for Myself and made it forbidden among you.”(3)(4) A full discussion of this appears elsewhere.

As for declaring that obligations or prohibitions apply to Him—Exalted and Most High—by analogy with His creatures, this is the doctrine of the Qadarites,(5) an innovated claim that contradicts both sound transmitted texts and clear reason. The people of the Sunnah agree that He, glorified be He, is the Creator and Sovereign of all things,(6) that whatever He wills comes to be and whatever He does not will does not come to be, and that the servants do not impose anything upon Him. Hence, any among Ahl al-Sunnah who speak of an ‘obligation’ do so only in the sense that He has decreed it for Himself and has forbidden it for Himself,(7) not that the servant, as such, is entitled to anything from Allah in the way one creature may be entitled to something from another.(8)