in Allah Most High. Whoever interprets his words, “If Allah has power over me,” as referring to decreeing or constraining has gone far afield and distorted the words from their proper meanings. He only ordered that he be burned and scattered so that he would not be gathered together and restored to life.

He said:

“When I die, burn me, then grind me to powder, then scatter me on the wind over the sea. For, by Allah, if my Lord has power over me, He will surely punish me as He has never punished anyone.”

His introducing this second sentence with the conjunction fa (“for”), immediately after the first, shows that it gives the reason for the first: he did this so that Allah would not have power over him once he had done so. Had he acknowledged that Allah would have the same power over him whether he did this or not, doing it would have served him no purpose. Furthermore, decreeing his fate and constraining him are both consistent with punishment, whereas he set his being scattered in opposition to the Lord’s having power over him. He said:

“For, by Allah, if Allah has power over me, He will surely punish me as He has never punished anyone in all creation.”

The condition cannot be identical to its consequence. Moreover, had that been his meaning, he would have said, “For, by Allah, if my Lord requites me—or if my Lord punishes me—He will surely inflict a punishment on me,” as is the usual manner of speaking in such cases. Furthermore, the word qadara has no basis in the language with the meaning “to constrain.”

Whoever cites His words, “And measure the links well,” and His words, “And whoever has his provision restricted,” as evidence for this has cited what does not support his claim.

For the wording in His statement, “And measure the links well,” means: make them to the proper measure, neither exceeding it nor falling short. And His statement, “And whoever has his provision restricted,” means that He has allotted him enough provision to meet his needs