and this is found in their writings and statements, as anyone with even the slightest familiarity with this subject knows. Accordingly, the distinction he has drawn does not resolve the disagreement he has mentioned. Rather, what he has said reinforces the very point he denies: each group treats whatever agrees with its position as unambiguous, and whatever agrees with its opponent’s position as ambiguous.

We have seen the books written on this subject. The writings of the Qadariyyah who deny divine predestination—the Muʿtazilah and those among the Shiʿah who agree with them—claim that rational proofs necessarily establish that the servant himself originates his actions. They may even claim that this is self-evident knowledge, as Abū al-Husayn did. Their proof of the Maker’s existence is then founded on this, since, according to them, it is through this that one knows that an act requires an agent; whoever does not know this does not know that an act requires an agent.

The same applies to their doctrines concerning justice and injustice, which they base on what they claim is self-evidently known concerning the determination of moral good and evil. Whatever agrees with this is, in their view, unambiguous, and whatever contradicts it is ambiguous.