and ‘Ā’ishah said:

‘Blessed is he—a sparrow among the sparrows of Paradise!’

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, rejected her statement and said:

‘Enough, ‘Ā’ishah! How do you know? Allah created Paradise and created its inhabitants for it, and He created the Fire and created its inhabitants for it.’

Ishāq said: This is the fundamental principle upon which scholars rely.”)

(Hammād ibn Salamah was asked about the Prophet’s saying, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Every child is born with the innate disposition.”

He replied: “In our understanding, this refers to when the covenant was taken from them while they were in their fathers’ loins.”

Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr said:

(Ibn Qutaybah said: “He means when Allah wiped Adam’s back and brought forth from him his descendants until the Day of Resurrection, like tiny ants, and made them testify concerning themselves: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They replied: ‘Yes.’”)

I say: The aim of Hammād, Ishāq, Mālik, Ibn al-Mubārak, and those who followed them, such as Ibn Qutaybah, Ibn Battah, Judge Abū Ya‘lā, and others, was to prevent the Qadariyyah from using this hadith as evidence to deny divine decree. This aim is sound. However, they pursued it through methods of which some were sound and others weak.