which consists in recognizing His lordship and acknowledging His oneness. Neither disbelief nor faith results from this; rather, these arise in them subsequently in accordance with the prevailing decree. He created everyone upon the innate disposition and commanded everyone to believe, so that the call would be valid and the sincere counsel universal. He enabled everyone to do what He commanded and willed).

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

I say:

These words agree with the view of those who say that He created them upon the innate disposition, which consists in recognizing and acknowledging the Creator, and that this alone does not make a person either a believer or a disbeliever. The author has rejected the view that they were created upon disbelief or faith, which is the apparent meaning of the position previously related from a group of scholars.

The author of these words holds that the recognition and acknowledgment upon which they were created cannot be changed. This agrees with the view that the words, “There is no change in Allah’s creation,” constitute a statement of fact. However, the proponent of that interpretation holds that people are created only upon the innate disposition: creation is not altered such that they are created otherwise.

The author of these words, by contrast, holds that creation cannot be altered afterward. That is, they cannot cease to recognize and acknowledge the Creator; rather, this recognition and acknowledgment are inseparable from them. He holds that a person cannot depart from anything upon which he was created. He affirms divine decree and that Allah creates people’s deeds, yet denies that they were innately disposed to those deeds, forced into them, or compelled to perform them.

As for the discussion of compulsion, it is treated at length elsewhere. We have explained that the position of the leading scholars, such as al-Awzā‘ī, al-Thawrī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others, is to reject both the affirmation and the negation of compulsion.

The position of al-Zubaydī and a group of scholars is to deny compulsion