created the servant’s motive and is therefore the Creator of his act, and that He knows what will happen, so anything contrary to what He knows is impossible. On this basis, the Muʿtazilah’s argument is invalidated, since they hold that one cannot be charged with doing the impossible or with performing another’s act.

In reality, this is a dialectical rejoinder that holds them to the implications of their own premises, not an answer grounded in knowledge. Sunnis generally acknowledge that Allah is the Creator of His servants’ acts, yet they also affirm that Allah creates with wisdom and for a reason, and that He is far above punishing anyone without sin or committing any other injustice. They also affirm that actions possess attributes by virtue of which they are good or evil, as explained at length elsewhere.

The point here is that every group claims the principle he has set out. It therefore supports what he objects to in their position rather than refuting it.

Third: His statement, “If the wording of a verse or a report has an apparent meaning, we may depart from that apparent meaning only on the basis of independent evidence