Then Yazīd died, and the Muslim community became divided: Ibn al-Zubayr held the Hijāz, the house of al-Hakam held Syria, and al-Mukhtār ibn Abī ‘Ubayd and others rose up in Iraq. It was during this period, towards the end of the era of the Companions, while men such as ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Abbās, ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Umar, Jābir ibn ‘Abd Allāh, Abū Sa‘īd al-Khudrī, and others were still alive, that the innovations of the Qadariyyah and the Murji’ah arose. The surviving Companions, such as Ibn ‘Abbās, Ibn ‘Umar, Jābir, Wāthilah ibn al-Asqa‘, and others—may Allah be pleased with them—refuted these innovations, alongside their own and others’ refutations of the innovations of the Khawārij and the Rāfidah.

At that time, the Qadariyyah’s discussions chiefly concerned people’s deeds, just as the Murji’ah’s did. Their discussions thus concerned obedience and disobedience, the believer and the sinner, and similar questions of “religious designations and rulings” and “the promise of reward and the threat of punishment.”

They did not discuss their Lord or His attributes until towards the end of the era of the younger Successors, in the closing years of the Umayyad state, when most of the third generation—the successors of the Successors—began to pass away—for the three generations are reckoned according to the majority of the people of each generation, who belong to its middle period. Most of the Companions had passed away by the end of the caliphate of the four caliphs, so that only a few of those who had fought at Badr remained. Most of the Successors, who followed them in righteousness, had passed away towards the end of the era of the younger Companions, during the rule of Ibn al-Zubayr and ‘Abd al-Malik. Most of the successors of the Successors had passed away towards the end of the Umayyad state and the beginning of the Abbasid state—and there came to be