and this is the case with all causes and effects. Attributing causal efficacy to the servant’s power in this sense is not associating partners with Allah; otherwise, affirming any causes at all would be associating partners with Him.

The All-Wise, the All-Aware has said:

“Then through it We sent down water, and through it We brought forth every kind of fruit.”

“Then through it We caused gardens of beauty to grow.”

And He, exalted is He, has said:

“Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands.”

He thus made clear that He is the One who inflicts the punishment, while our hands are causes, instruments, intermediaries, and means by which the punishment reaches them. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“If any of you dies, be sure to inform me so that I may pray over him, for through my prayer over him Allah will bestow blessing and mercy.”

It is Allah, glorified is He, who bestows mercy, and it is through the prayer of our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that He bestows it. With this clarification, we say:

Allah, glorified is He, creates bodily acts through acts of the heart. In this sense, one of these two acquired acts has a causal effect on the other, and that acquired act forms part of the power involved in the second acquired act.

For power here means nothing other than that through which the act necessarily occurs: intention, will, soundness of the organs, the faculties created in the limbs, and so forth. It must therefore accompany the act and cannot precede it in time. As for the capacity upon which commands and prohibitions depend, that is another matter, which is not our subject here.