known that He wills all that comes into being, contrary to the Qadariyyah. They said, “He also loves these things and wills them.” Then they began distorting words from their proper meanings.

They said, “‘He does not love corruption’ means that He does not will corruption—that is, He does not will it for the believers. And ‘He does not approve of disbelief for His servants’ means that He does not will it for His believing servants.” This is a grave error. By their reasoning, this would be equivalent to saying, “He does not love faith and does not approve of faith for His servants”—meaning that He does not will it for the disbelievers or approve of it for them. The Muslims agree that whatever Allah commands is something He favors and loves. It may, moreover, be obligatory, or it may be recommended without being obligatory, whether it is actually done or not. This matter is discussed at length elsewhere.

(The second group) consists of those Sufis who fell into error. They drank from this same spring: they recognized that Allah is the Lord of all created things and knew that He had decreed and willed everything. They supposed that they could not attain contentment until they were content with everything He decrees and ordains, including disbelief, wickedness, and disobedience. One of them even said, “Love is a fire that burns away from the heart everything except what the Beloved wills.” They said, “Everything in creation is willed by the Beloved.”

These people went gravely astray because they failed to distinguish between Allah’s will concerning religion and His will governing creation; between His permission concerning creation and His permission concerning religion; between His command concerning creation and His command concerning religion; between His raising up in relation to creation and His raising up in relation to religion; and between His sending forth in relation to creation and His sending forth in relation to religion—as we have explained at length elsewhere.