something, it becomes bad; the act thus acquires the quality of goodness or badness through the Lawgiver’s address.

The third:
The Lawgiver may command something to test whether the servant will obey or disobey Him, without intending that the commanded act actually be carried out. Thus, He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. When they both submitted and he laid his son down upon his forehead, the purpose was achieved, so He ransomed him with a sacrifice. Likewise, there is “the account of a leper, a bald man, and a blind man: when Allah sent someone to ask them for charity and the blind man responded, the angel said, ‘Keep your wealth, for you were only being tested. He is pleased with you and displeased with your two companions.’”

The wisdom thus arises from the command itself, not from the commanded act. The Muʿtazilah did not understand this category or the preceding one. They maintained that goodness and badness can belong only to what possesses those qualities independently of the Lawgiver’s command. The Ashʿarīs claimed that the entire revealed law falls under the category of testing, and that acts possess no quality of goodness or badness, either before the revealed law or as a result of it. The wise and the majority, however, affirmed all three categories, and this is the correct position.