such as Abū Muhammad ibn Kullāb, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī, Abū al-Hasan al-Ashʿarī, Judge Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak, Abū Ishāq al-Isfarāyīnī, the master Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī, and Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī; likewise, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muhammad ibn Karrām and his followers, such as Ibn al-Haysam, and the other theologians among the followers of Abū Hanīfah, such as Abū Mansūr al-Māturīdī and others. All these scholars and those like them agree on this. More than one scholar, including Abū al-Hasan ibn al-Zāghūnī, has reported the Muslims’ consensus on it. Only some among them disputed this, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī followed them.

Their appeal to the account of Abū Lahab is an invalid argument. Allah commanded Abū Lahab to believe before the surah was revealed. When he persisted in his defiance, he deserved the threatened punishment, just as Noah’s people did when Noah was told:

“None of your people will believe except those who have already believed.”

Once he deserved the threatened punishment, Allah announced the punishment that would befall him. At that point, he was not under a command requiring him to believe.

The revealed law abounds with evidence that commanded acts are conditional upon ability and capacity. Thus the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said to ʿImrān ibn Husayn:

“Pray standing; if you cannot, then sitting; and if you cannot, then lying on your side.”

The Muslims agree that when someone praying is unable to fulfil some of the prayer’s obligations—such as standing, reciting, bowing, prostrating, covering the parts of the body that must be covered, facing the qiblah, or anything else—the obligations he is unable to fulfil are waived. He is obliged only to do what he would be able to do if he resolutely willed to do it. Likewise, they agree that inability to fast removes its obligation from people such as