then, if He—glorified be He—executes it, it takes effect; but if He chooses not to execute it, it is deflected from the servant.

Thus, exalted is He, whatever He decrees He also brings to fruition(1); whereas others may issue a decree and determine a matter yet be unable to enforce it. He alone both decrees and brings to pass; to Him belong the decree and its execution.

His words, “Your decree concerning me is just,” encompass every one of His judgments upon His slave from every angle: health and illness, wealth and poverty, pleasure and pain, life and death, punishment and pardon, and all else besides. The Most High says, “Whatever calamity befalls you is because of what your own hands have earned” (42:30), and He says, “And if a misfortune strikes them because of what their own hands have sent ahead, indeed man is ever ungrateful” (42:48). Accordingly, everything He decrees for the servant is sheer justice toward him.

Someone may object: “But sin, in your view, occurs by His decree and predestination. Where, then, is the justice in decreeing the sin itself, for the justice of punishing it is obvious?”

We reply: This is a weighty question, and on its account

a faction has claimed that justice is whatever falls within His power, while injustice is intrinsically impossible. They argue: “Injustice is to dispose of what belongs to another, yet everything belongs to Allah; therefore His dealings with His creation can only be just.”

Another faction contends: Rather, justice is that He does not punish for what He has decreed and predestined; so when it is fitting for Him to punish a sin, that proves the sin is not by His decree and predestination. In their view, justice consists in requiting the sin with punishment and blame, whether in this world or in the Hereafter!