As for the acts of servants, no one has excepted them from the general category of created things other than the Qadariyyah—the Muʿtazilah and others like them—who say that Allah did not create them. Yet even these people maintain that such acts originate in time, coming into existence after not existing. The exception is these proponents of indwelling.

I know of no one among the earlier generations, whether from Ahl al-Sunnah or the people of innovation, who said that servants’ acts, whether good or evil, are beginningless. I know of this view only through reports concerning some later Egyptians, and similar reports have reached me concerning some later non-Arabs. I have also seen some of their Syrian shaykhs suspend judgment on these acts, saying, “We say that they are decreed and predestined, but we say neither that they are created nor that they are uncreated.” Some people drew a distinction on the grounds that good deeds are part of faith. The statements of the early generations concerning “faith” are discussed elsewhere.

These “three positions”—that such acts are beginningless, that good deeds are beginningless, or that judgment should be suspended on the matter—are unsound and false. None of the renowned imams held them, nor would anyone who understands what he is saying. What led these people into such positions was their mistaken understanding of “the question of uttering the Quran,” “the question of recitation and what is recited,” and “the question of faith.”

Elsewhere, we have explained people’s positions on “the question of the Quran” and clarified the true, balanced position held by the early generations and the imams, which accords with both transmitted revelation and reason. We have also explained the deviations of those who went astray among both those who affirm and those who negate.