division and disagreement within this community and others. This is one such instance. They shared the view that the Lord’s creation of the servant’s actions is incompatible with those actions being classified as good or bad. They shared this premise in their disputation, although it is neither true in itself nor supported by any sound proof. It is one of the two premises on which al-Rāzī relies in discussing the question of judging actions good or bad. In his al-Mahsūl and elsewhere, he held that the servant is compelled to act, that the action of someone compelled cannot be bad, and that therefore none of the servants’ actions can be bad.

This argument for denying such badness is rooted in the argument of the polytheists who denied the messengers and said:

“Had Allah willed, neither we nor our forefathers would have associated partners with Him, nor would we have forbidden anything.”

By affirming divine decree, they denied the wrongfulness of associating partners with Allah and of forbidding good things that Allah had not forbidden. Yet those who invoke compulsion to negate rulings, if they acknowledge the revealed law, are not like the polytheists in every respect. Thus, the speculative theologians who acknowledge the revealed law are not like the polytheists, even though they share in some of the polytheists’ falsehood. Nevertheless, among the speculative theologians and Sufis are groups so dominated by belief in compulsion that