in its entirety. These things are contingent and have come into existence, so the evidence that Allah created them is like the evidence that He created other things that have come into existence. This is not the place to discuss that; it has its place elsewhere. The point here is simply that the imams refuted those who excluded people’s words and deeds from Allah’s creation, treating this as equivalent to claiming that the heavens and the earth were not created by Allah.

Yet those innovators maintained that these things had come into existence and were not beginningless. How much worse, then, if they are said to be beginningless! That amounts to two deviations—indeed, three.

The first is making something that has come into existence and been fashioned into a beginningless attribute of Allah, after the manner of the Christians and those like them.

The second is excluding what Allah has created and what lies within His power from His creation and power, as the Qadariyyah maintained, after the manner of the Magians and those like them.

The third is denying that the servant’s act, what lies within his power, and his acquisition are within his power or constitute his own acquisition and action, after the manner of the polytheistic Jabriyyah-Qadariyyah. This was the point of those imams’ statements on this matter.

Then, when the innovation of the “Lafziyyah” arose, the imams of that age adduced, among