provision, and worship Him and be grateful to Him.”

In his sermon, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Praise be to Allah. We seek His help and forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from our evil deeds.”

He thus combined praising Allah, seeking His help, and asking His forgiveness. It has therefore become clear that placing one’s reliance on causes constitutes associating partners with Allah, contrary to His oneness, and is wrongdoing and ignorance. This is the condition of someone who invokes another besides Allah and relies upon him.

As for their statement, “To deny that causes are causes is a deficiency in reason,” this is indeed so, and it also undermines the revealed Law. Many speculative theologians have denied causes altogether, treating their existence as no different from their absence. Those naturalists, by contrast, regarded them as causes that necessarily produce their effects, while the Muʿtazilah distinguished between the actions of living creatures and other occurrences. All three views are false, for Allah says:

“He is the One who sends the winds as glad tidings before His mercy. When they bear heavy clouds, We drive them to a lifeless land and send down water through them, bringing forth thereby every kind of fruit.”

And He, Most High, says:

“And the water Allah sends down from the sky, giving life thereby to the earth after its death.”

And He, Most High, says:

“Through it Allah guides those who seek His pleasure to the paths of peace.”

And He, Most High, says:

“Through it He leads many astray and guides many.”

There are many similar passages. Whoever says that effects occur in the presence of causes, but not through them, contradicts the wording of the Quran. Moreover, sensory experience and reason testify that these are causes and recognize the difference between the forehead and the eye, in that one possesses a faculty absent from the other; likewise, between bread and pebbles, in that one provides nourishment while the other does not.

As for their statement, “To disregard causes altogether undermines the revealed Law,” it also undermines reason. The actions of servants are among the strongest causes of the outcomes attached to them. Thus, whoever regards