inanimate objects that he neither loves nor hates do—such a person receives no reward for not committing evil deeds. Yet neither is he punished for committing them; it is as though he had not committed them. In his case, evil deeds are thus treated as they are in the case of a child, an insane person, or an animal: there is neither reward nor punishment. However, once the proof has been established against him through his knowledge that these deeds are forbidden, unless he believes in their prohibition and abhors them, he is punished for failing to believe that they are forbidden.

Section

People have disagreed about refraining from action: is it something positively existent, or merely an absence? Most hold that it is something positively existent. A group, however—including Abū Hāshim ibn al-Jubbā’ī—maintains that it is merely an absence, and that someone who has been commanded to act is punished simply for not performing the action, rather than for an act of refraining that occurs within him. They are called “al-Madhammiyya” because they attach blame to sheer absence.

The majority say that refraining from action is something positively existent. Thus, no reward is given to one who