; Your judgment concerning me takes effect, and Your decree concerning me is just. I ask You by every name belonging to You—by which You have named Yourself, which You have revealed in Your Book, which You have taught to any of Your creation, or which You have kept to Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen with You—to make the Quran the springtime of my heart, the light of my breast, the dispeller of my sorrow, and the remover of my worry and distress’—but Allah removes his worry and distress and replaces them with joy.

“They asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, should we not learn these words?’

“He replied, ‘Indeed! Whoever hears them should learn them.’”

He thus made clear that every decree of His concerning His servant is just. Hence it is said: “Every blessing from Him is grace, and every punishment from Him is justice.”

It is also said: “I obeyed You by Your grace, and all favor belongs to You. I disobeyed You with Your knowledge—or by Your justice—and Yours is the case against me. I therefore ask You, by the binding force of Your case against me and my lack of any defense, to forgive me.”

This exchange involving Iyās resembles what Rabī‘ah ibn Abī ‘Abd al-Rahmān said to Ghaylān when Ghaylān asked him, “I ask you by Allah: do you think Allah loves to be disobeyed?”

He replied, “I ask you by Allah: do you think Allah is disobeyed by force?”—meaning, by overpowering Him. It was as though he had stopped his mouth with a stone.

The expression “loves to be disobeyed” is ambiguous. In a debate, it may not be feasible to explain ambiguous expressions for fear of an opponent’s obstinate disputation, so one resorts to clear statements. Thus he said, “Do you then think He is disobeyed by force?” This forces his opponent to accept the implication that Allah is powerless—a necessary consequence of the position of the Qadariyyah and of those worse than them, such as the eternalist philosophers and others. Likewise, Iyās saw that this answer, which accorded with their own definition, refuted them, and he did not enter into a lengthy discussion of the details.