learn it. As for what has not reached him and he has been unable to learn, he is not held accountable for it. He is only required to fear Allah as much as he can. This is an error in knowledge, not an error in action. He is like a scholar who errs in exercising independent judgment: he is rewarded for his intention and effort, and his error is pardoned.

If it is objected:

If that is so, then the servant must refrain in such circumstances, when it has not become clear to him whether that action is commanded or prohibited, and he does not wish to do anything that merits neither praise nor blame. He must refrain, rather than surrender to the divine decree and become a passive instrument for whatever actions he is made to perform. The only exception is when someone else performs an action: he neither praises nor censures it, neither approves nor disapproves of it, if its ruling has not become clear to him.

But for him, in his own voluntary actions, to surrender to whatever the divine decree employs him in—like a child with its wet nurse or a dead person with the one washing him—is something neither Allah nor His Messenger has commanded. Rather, it is forbidden, even if the person doing it is pardoned. It is enough for him to be pardoned on account of his exercise of judgment and good intention. But that he should be praised for this, and that this should be regarded as the highest of spiritual stations—that is not so. Being free of his own desires does not justify his surrendering to everything done to him.

It may then be said: Even so, these matters fall into two categories: