that could possibly exist; rather, it is intrinsically impossible. It therefore cannot fall within His power, nor can it be said that He refrains from it by His choice and will. It belongs instead to the same category as combining two opposites, placing a single body in two locations, or turning the beginningless into something originated and the originated into something beginningless. Otherwise, whatever can be conceived of, whose existence is possible and which Allah has the power to bring about, is not injustice on His part, whether He does it or not.”

Various groups among the affirmationist jurists and hadith scholars—including followers of Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad and others, as well as hadith commentators and their like—adopted this position from them. They interpreted this hadith on that basis. Sometimes they appealed to the apparent meaning of transmitted statements, such as the report we have narrated from Iyās ibn Mu‘āwiyah, who said:

“I have never debated anyone with the full force of my reason except the Qadariyyah. I asked them, ‘What is injustice?’

“They replied, ‘Taking what does not belong to you, or disposing of what does not belong to you.’

“I said, ‘But everything belongs to Allah.’”

Iyās intended only to show that the acts in question concern what Allah owns, and therefore cannot constitute injustice according to their own definition. This is undisputed among the affirmationists, for they agree with those who believe in divine decree that everything Allah does is just.

In the hadith concerning distress, reported by Imam Ahmad from ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“No servant is ever afflicted by worry or sorrow and says: ‘O Allah, I am Your servant, the son of Your servant and the son of Your maidservant. My forelock is in Your hand