commits such acts before any messenger has reached him? On that point, three well-known opinions are reported among the scholars affiliated with the great imams and others. These same three views exist among the followers of Imam Ahmad as well.

1. A first group holds that the goodness or vileness of actions can be known only through the revealed law, not through reason. This is the position of the speculative theologians who affirm compulsion—mujbira (determinists)—such as Jahm ibn Ṣafwān and those of his ilk. It is likewise the view of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī and his supporters drawn from the adherents of the four schools, including Qāḍī Abū Bakr ibn al-Ṭayyib, Abū ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Ḥāmid, Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, and Abū al-Maʿālī.