except by attributing folly and injustice to Him.”

These people denied His wisdom and justice, while the others denied His power and will—or His power, will, and knowledge. One group resembled the Magians in associating partners with Him in His lordship, since they made someone other than Him a creator. The other resembled the polytheists who make no distinction between worshipping Him and worshipping others, but permit worshipping others just as they permit worshipping Him, saying:

“If Allah had willed, we would not have associated partners with Him”—to the end of the verse.

Their affirmation of Allah’s oneness extends no further than that of the polytheists: affirming His oneness in lordship. As for His exclusive right to worship—which encompasses His commands and prohibitions, and the fact that Allah loves what He commands and hates what He forbids—they deny it. Consequently, they follow their desires more readily than the Muʿtazila, are more given to associating partners with Allah, and are more permissive. The ultimate position of their theologians and devotees is to permit idol worship and to maintain that the spiritual knower neither regards a good deed as good nor an evil deed as evil, as stated by the author of Manāzil al-Sā’irīn (The Stations of the Wayfarers).

As for idol worship, their later figures openly advocated it. Al-Rāzī composed a work on it, while Ibn ʿArabī, Ibn Sabʿīn, and others like them explicitly declare it permissible and condemn those who denounce it. Yet they contradict themselves in this.

The fundamental premise of the “Qadariyya” is that His power and wisdom cannot both be affirmed: if He were able, He would have done something other than what He did; since He did not, this indicates that He was unable. They said:

“His wisdom is affirmed just as His judgment is affirmed, because denying this would entail folly and injustice, from which He is free. This is unlike what He is unable to do, for He is excused when He does not do it