He means:

“When you obey, you regard yourself as the creator of your obedience, forgetting Allah’s favor upon you in making you obedient to Him. When you disobey, however, you do not acknowledge that you committed the sin. Instead, you regard yourself as someone compelled to do it against his will, or as something set in motion that has neither will, ability, nor knowledge. Both are mistaken.”

Abū Tālib al-Makkī related that Sahl ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Tustarī said:

“When a servant performs a good deed and says, ‘My Lord, I performed this good deed,’ his Lord says to him, ‘I enabled you to do it and helped you with it.’ If he says, ‘My Lord, You helped me with it and enabled me to do it,’ his Lord says to him, ‘You performed it, and its reward is yours.’

“When he commits an evil deed and says, ‘My Lord, You decreed this evil deed for me,’ his Lord says to him, ‘You committed it, and you bear its burden.’ If he says, ‘My Lord, I committed this sin, and I repent of it,’ his Lord says to him, ‘I decreed it for you, and I forgive you for it.’”

This subject has been discussed at length elsewhere. Among many of those associated with spiritual leadership and Sufism, it has become common to see only divine decree at work, without regard for divine commands and prohibitions, and to invoke it as a justification for neglecting what is commanded and doing what is forbidden. This is the gravest misguidance.

Whoever consistently follows this position and accepts its necessary implications would be more unbelieving than the Jews, Christians, and polytheists. Most of those who fall into this, however, contradict themselves and do not follow their position consistently.

The statement of the person in question belongs to this category. For his statement:

“Adam was inwardly commanded to eat, so he ate. Iblīs’s affirmation of Allah’s oneness was outward, so he was commanded to prostrate to Adam, but regarded him as other than Allah and did not prostrate