This disagreement is one of the implications of rationally grounded obligations for children who have attained discernment, according to those who hold that reason imposes obligations. It parallels the disagreement over obligations imposed by revelation. One of the two positions within Ahmad’s school, adopted by Abū Bakr Abd al-Azīz, is that prayer becomes obligatory for a child at ten. Likewise, fasting becomes obligatory for him when he is capable of it. On this basis, Abū al-Khattāb and those who agree with him have even stronger grounds for holding that affirming Allah’s oneness is obligatory for such a child. Indeed, it may be said that even if one does not hold that reason imposes obligations, one must nevertheless maintain that a child is required to affirm the two testimonies of faith before prayer becomes obligatory for him, since their obligation precedes that of prayer by consensus.

As for maintenance, repayment of debts, and other obligations chargeable to a child’s property, as well as tithes and zakat according to the majority who hold that zakat is due on his property, discernment is not a prerequisite for these, by the consensus of Muslims. Rather, these obligations also apply to the property of a person of unsound mind and to that of an infant.

The jurists have well-known discussions concerning a child’s conversion to Islam, apostasy, entry into ritual consecration, and other statements and actions. This is not the place to elaborate on them. Nor is this the place to discuss the inconsistencies in some of their positions or the greater strength of some views over others. The point here is simply that those who hold reason in the highest esteem are those who maintain that it imposes obligations and prohibitions and judges things good or evil. These include the Mu‘tazilah, the Karrāmiyyah, those among the Shia who hold this view, and those groups of jurists and scholars who agree with them.

As for the philosophers, reports of their views differ because their statements are contradictory. The view commonly attributed to them is that reason judges things good or evil, as Abū al-Khattāb reported of them. Yet when people saw that their discussion of the principles of logic, and their assertion that these propositions are commonly accepted rather than demonstrative, contradicted that view, they began