involving something harmful to him. They maintain that it is not fitting for Him to harm a living being except because of a prior offence or with subsequent compensation. As for those who affirm divine decree, those among them who do not attribute purposes to His acts make no distinction between one created thing and another.

Those who affirm divine wisdom—and they are the majority—say:

Allah Most High has great wisdom in the suffering He creates in living beings, just as He has wisdom in everything else. We do not confine His wisdom to reward and compensation, for that would mean judging Allah Most High by analogy with an individual human being, and likening Allah’s wisdom and justice to that person’s wisdom and justice.

The “Muʿtazilah” liken Allah to His creation in His acts while denying His attributes. Among their corrupt principles is that they describe Allah in terms of what He creates in the world, since, according to them, no attribute or act subsists in Him. They therefore name Him on this basis and describe Him in terms of what He creates in the world. For example, they say that He speaks through speech He creates in another, and wills through a will He brings into existence without its inhering in any subject. They also say that His pleasure, anger, love, and hatred are the very reward and punishment He creates; and that if He were the creator of the servant’s wrongdoing and lying, He Himself would be the wrongdoer and liar. These and similar assertions are such that any rational person who reflects upon them recognizes their falsity as self-evident.

For this reason, the early generations and the leading scholars vehemently condemned them, especially when they openly proclaimed that the Quran was created. The early generations knew that this was, in reality, a denial of the speech of Allah Most High, and that if His speech were whatever He creates, it would follow that every created utterance was His speech. Thus, the speech He causes skins to utter on the Day of Resurrection, the glorification He causes mountains and pebbles to utter, the testimony of hands and feet, and the like would all be His speech. And if He is the Creator of every