they come to disbelieve in commands and prohibitions, promises and threats, reward and punishment, whether in speech or in their disposition and conduct. This most often occurs with actions that accord with their desires. By this they seek to escape blame and punishment, yet it only increases their blame and punishment—like someone seeking refuge from scorching ground in a fire.

No one can consistently put this view into practice. In their dealings with one another, human beings cannot do without wanting certain things and commanding them, and hating other things and forbidding them. Whoever seeks to treat alike what is loved and what is hated, what is pleasing and what is displeasing, justice and injustice, knowledge and ignorance, misguidance and guidance, sound judgment and error, can never maintain that position. Rather, when something happens that he dislikes and that harms him, he rushes to ward it off and punish its perpetrator by whatever means he can, even to the point of transgression.

They are thus among the most unjust of people: they judge reprehensible acts of injustice and indecency differently depending on whether they are committed by themselves or others, or by those they favor or those they do not. They invoke divine decree in their own defense, but not in defense of their adversaries. You will find that when one of them does something for which he is praised, the outlook of the Qadarites comes to dominate his heart: he regards himself, rather than Allah, as the one who brought it about, and forgets Allah’s favor to him