nonsense, for he possessed knowledge and religious devotion, although the previously mentioned view that human actions, both good and evil, are eternal is attributed to him. Some of them have shown me this in his own handwriting.
It has been said that he retracted this view. He followed the approach of Shaykh Abū al-Faraj al-Maqdisī al-Shīrāzī, and it was reported of him that he would withhold judgment, saying, “They are decreed and ordained,” and say no more. Shaykh Abū al-Faraj was one of the followers of Judge Abū Ya‘lā. However, Judge Abū Ya‘lā did not approve of such views; rather, he categorically affirmed that human actions are created. Had he heard anyone hesitate to affirm that disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience are created—let alone say that a person’s actions, both good and evil, are eternal—he would have rebuked him in the strongest terms.
Nevertheless, there are passages in the Judge’s writings in which his statements are inconsistent and contradictory. In one passage, he made a statement from which those who agreed with him developed unsound conclusions. A scholar may make an erroneous statement, and his followers then derive numerous further conclusions from it, as happened regarding the questions of “utterance,” “human speech,” “faith,” and “human actions.”
None of the early generations and imams—Imam Ahmad and others—said that human speech is uncreated, nor did they say that it is eternal, or that human actions are uncreated or eternal. Nor did they say that faith is eternal or uncreated. Neither did they say that people’s utterance of the Quran is created or uncreated. However, they prohibited declaring without qualification