—for denying the ability to perform what is commanded is comparable to affirming compulsion to commit what is forbidden—and like stating without qualification that a person has the power and ability to act contrary to what Allah knows and has decreed.

The early generations of this community and its leading scholars rejected all these unqualified statements, especially since both the affirmative and the negative positions contain falsehood, even though they also contain truth. Rather, sound expressions should be used without qualification: those transmitted in the revealed texts. Ambiguous expressions that admit different meanings must be explained in detail.

The same approach must be followed in all other matters concerning the foundations of religion. What is established by the words of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, His Messenger, and the consensus of the community’s early generations must be treated as the definitive authority. Newly introduced expressions, with their opposing affirmations and negations, each containing both truth and falsehood, must be treated as ambiguous formulations requiring clarification; neither side may be asserted without qualification.

Elsewhere, we have recorded statements from al-Awzāʿī, Sufyān al-Thawrī, ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Mahdī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and other leading scholars expressing their disapproval of affirming compulsion without qualification, and likewise prohibiting its unqualified denial.

Similarly, regarding the imposition of obligations beyond a person’s capacity, the leading scholars did not affirm either position without qualification.

Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-Khallāl’s companion, said in his Book of Divine Decree, which forms the introduction to his Kitāb al-Muqniʿ:

“We have received no statement from Abū ʿAbd Allāh on this question that we might follow. People have differed over it: some affirmed the imposition of obligations beyond a person’s capacity, while this was denied by