Likewise, some people have thought that the deceased’s benefiting from bodily acts of worship performed by the living contradicts His saying:

“And that a person will have only what he has striven for.”

But this is not so. In relation to this verse, the deceased’s benefiting from bodily acts of worship performed by the living is no different from his benefiting from acts of worship involving wealth. Anyone who claims that the verse contradicts one but not the other makes a plainly unsound claim. Indeed, in relation to the verse, this is no different from his benefiting from supplication, prayers for forgiveness, and intercession.

Elsewhere, we have presented some thirty proofs from revelation showing that a person benefits from another’s efforts. The verse merely denies that he is entitled to, or owns, another’s efforts. Yet the fact that a person neither owns something nor is entitled to it does not mean that its rightful owner cannot show him kindness by allowing him to benefit from it. These are two distinct matters. Likewise, the fact that a person does not own something does not mean that he cannot derive any benefit from it. Such a claim is false in both religious and worldly matters.

These texts that deny injustice affirm justice in recompense: no one who acts will be deprived of the due reward for his deeds. Likewise, He says concerning those whom He punished:

“We did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves. Their gods, whom they invoked besides Allah, were of no benefit to them whatsoever.”

And He says:

“We did not wrong them, but it was they who were the wrongdoers.”

He makes clear that punishing the evildoers was just because of their sins, not that He wronged them by punishing them for no sin.

The hadith recorded in the Sunan collections states:

“If Allah were to punish the inhabitants of His heavens and His earth, He would punish them without wronging them. And if He were to show them mercy, His mercy to them would be better than their deeds.”

This makes clear that, were such punishment to occur, it would be because they deserved it, not that it would be inflicted without sin. This shows that included among