one of the two identical alternatives over the other without any cause of preference whatsoever. Accordingly, if existence and non-existence stand in exactly the same relation to the reality of a contingent being, it would be admissible to favor either one without a determinate cause—hence allowing the contingent and newly originated things to arise with no creative agent at all.

They therefore contend, “We distinguish between a capable agent’s favoring one of his two equal potentials without a preferring cause, and a necessitating cause’s doing so without such a cause.” This distinction is the very foundation of the doctrine of the Muʿtazilites and the Ashʿarites, as well as those jurists who followed them among the adherents of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and others. All of them maintain that the factor tipping the balance is a will whose relation to both equivalents is the same. The Ashʿarites hold that the preferring cause is the will of the voluntary, omnipotent agent, whereas the Muʿtazilites make the preferring cause the agent himself. Among the latter, the Basrans say that the will comes into being by itself and in no particular locus, while the Baghdadis deny the will altogether, asserting that “will” adds nothing beyond the performance of the act itself and the issuance of commands concerning what is enjoined.