from You.” The early generations and the imams consistently applied their principle, saying: His granting well-being is His act, which subsists in Him, whereas the well-being found in people is what His act produces.

They likewise said: Allah is the Creator of the servants’ acts. The servants’ acts, which subsist in them, are effects produced by Him, not His own act; they are the servants’ own acts. In reality, those people’s position amounted to denying both the Lord’s act and the servant’s act. Thus, the Mu‘tazilah gained the upper hand against them on “the question of divine speech and predestination,” exposing their contradictions just as they themselves had exposed the contradictions of the Mu‘tazilah.

This is the greatest benefit to be derived from the statements of disputing parties whose positions are false: the statements of each party expose the unsoundness of the other’s position. The seeker thereby recognizes the unsoundness of those positions, and this prompts him to seek the truth. You will find that the truth invariably accords with what the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, brought, and that what the Messenger brought invariably accords with sound reason. The seeker thus becomes one who has a heart, or listens with full attentiveness—one who has a heart with which to understand and an ear with which to hear—unlike those who said:

“If only we had listened or reasoned, we would not have been among the inhabitants of the Blaze.”

Many scholars of hadith and Sufism, as well as jurists affiliated with the four imams, agreed with the Kullābiyyah’s position. Yet none of the four imams