or what is best. Neither group’s foundational principle proved sound or consistently applicable. From this difficulty, the dualists and adherents of Magianism came to posit two principles and to maintain that light and darkness are eternal.

Most theologians of the affirmationist tradition escaped some of these errors—although their position involved a measure of thinking ill of Allah and a degree of irreverence. They referred the matter to sheer volition and pure will, maintaining that its production of all contingent things and its bringing about of all possible things proceed in one and the same manner, and that its particular determinations and distinctions are intrinsic to it. Had this account incorporated something of the manifestations of mercy and forms of wisdom—whether known or unknown to us—it would have been more acceptable.

In any case, the lām expressing purpose in His acts—glorified and exalted is He—does not bear the meaning that most people understand when it expresses purpose in their own acts. Beyond what these people know and say lies the understanding with which Allah—glorified and exalted is He—has illuminated the hearts of His close servants and which He has cast into the hearts of His chosen ones: those who, in their outward statements, adhere firmly to the path of those devoted to transmitted reports, and, in what they keep hidden from people’s understanding, hold fast to the bond of those endowed with insight.

At this level, people of understanding discern the secret of His words:

“My mercy has preceded My wrath,”

and the words:

“Evil is not ascribed to You,”

and the words:

“In Your hand is all good,”

and the words: “from the evil of what