and decreed and ordained them to be believers and disbelievers with respect to what they would ultimately become—that is, the final outcomes which He has always known, had power over, and willed. He did not create them as disbelievers in their servitude, submission, physical constitution, or composition, nor affirm them as such, for they remain subject to His demands and bound to serve Him. It is inconceivable that He should create them for that, then require them to worship Him and hold them accountable, as the proponents of compulsion claim—Dirār and his followers, those who follow innovation, and those who emulate them in transgression and tyranny: the deluded who lay the blame upon divine decrees and cling to pretexts that afford them no excuse. They have not believed that deeds are fully recorded, that final outcomes are witnessed, that their deeds are encompassed within the two handfuls, that they will return to the One they worship, and that they will be called to account for what they acquire and held responsible for their deeds.

The Most Truthful of speakers says:

‘And they have other deeds besides that which they will commit.’

Are disbelief and whatever is other than it not both actions and acquisitions? Whoever claims that their final outcomes were not already known to Him, that He did not decree for them what actually proceeded from them, that He did not will this within His dominion, that He did not create their deeds, that He did not enumerate their movements and their stillness, and that He did not witness from eternity what they would ultimately become—such a person is a Qadarī, self-exalting and obstinate, a Mu‘tazilī who claims power and strength for himself and maintains that the matter rests with him.

And whoever claims that He imposed a disposition upon them, compelled them to act, and made their acquisition