And second: that whatever a person’s action causes is brought into being by that person.
And (third: that high and low prices arise only through this cause. These principles are false. It has been established that Allah is the Creator of everything, including human actions and all else. Abundant scriptural and rational evidence demonstrates this, and the early generations of this Ummah and its leading scholars agree upon it.
At the same time, they maintain that people possess power and will, and that they perform their own actions. They also affirm the causes Allah has created and the wisdom embodied in His creation.
The question of divine decree is a momentous one concerning which two groups have gone astray. One group denied that Allah is the Creator of everything and that whatever He wills occurs, while whatever He does not will does not occur. Such was the denial of the Muʿtazilites.
Another group denied that people perform their own actions, that they possess power which actually affects what lies within its scope, that anything created can be a cause of something else, or that Allah created anything for a wise purpose. Such was the denial of Jahm ibn Safwān and those who followed him among the proponents of compulsion, many of whom have been associated with the Sunnah. This question is discussed at length elsewhere.
As for the second principle—namely, that for which a person’s action is one of the causes, such as satiety