precede its effect in time; therefore, they contend that the power (qudra) to act exists only before the act, and the same holds for the will that brings it about.

By contrast, the Sunnis who affirm divine decree maintain that the power must be present at the very moment the deed is performed. By “power” they mean the total complex of factors that renders the servant an agent—will included.

Within this camp, however, a further debate arises: Is it admissible for that power to exist prior to the act and endure until the act occurs, so that the will then joins it? Or may it exist only concurrently with the act itself? Two opinions are on record.

1. The first view—espoused by the leading jurists and by the people of the Sunnah—is transmitted from Abu Hanifah, Abu Muhammad ibn Kullab, Abu al-‘Abbas al-Qalanisi, Abu al-‘Abbas ibn Suraij, and others who say that the power can accommodate both opposite outcomes. It is the view of the majority of jurists, who divide power into two kinds: (a) a power that renders an act possible, which is the prerequisite for every command and prohibition and is shared alike by the obedient and the sinner; and (b) a power that necessitates the act, a capacity possessed only by the obedient.

2. The second view is that power exists solely at the time of the act; whatever contradicts the divine foreknowledge is beyond the servant’s ability, and the sinner, therefore, is incapable of obedience. This is the position of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari and those theologians and jurists who followed him among the adherents of Malik, al-Shafi‘i, Ahmad, and others.