What do you scholars of Islam, firmly rooted in theology and eminent in the science of legal rulings, say? May the All-Knowing greet you with honour in the foremost places of the Abode of Peace, and may the Ever-Sustaining favour you with clarifying what minds find obscure concerning the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah. May Allah bless the souls of their predecessors, increase the numbers of their successors, and sustain them with every kind of gracious favour.

Concerning the belief that the voluntary acts of servants occur through Allah Most High’s creation and the servant’s creation: what exactly is the servant’s acquisition of an act? Furthermore, does this acquisition have any effect in bringing the act into existence, or does it not?

If it does, the servant becomes a partner of the Creator in creating the act. He would then be not one who acquires an act, but a partner who creates—and the righteous people of the Sunnah are innocent of this claim. If it has no effect in bringing the act into existence, then the act has been brought into existence entirely by the True One, glorified and exalted is He, with the servant having no part in it. This necessarily entails compulsion, which sweeps away the very foundation of religious law. Yet the adherents of the radiant Sunnah and the clear path shun this monstrous assertion and defective belief. Nor, on that basis, could obedience and disobedience, disbelief and faith be attributed to the servant such that he deserves wrath or good pleasure.

How, then, are we to proceed along the straight path and the sound way, O guides who show the way? Both extremes flanking the middle course are blameworthy. Give us an explanation that frees our minds from these shackles and heals our hearts of this intractable disease. May He to whom belong the attributes of perfection strengthen you with the Holy Spirit.