All this is clear, praise be to Allah, to those who have been granted knowledge and faith. It is also firmly established in the hearts of believers generally. Yet the Qadariyyah confused people with their specious arguments, and some who opposed them responded with a kind of falsehood, such as the arguments condemned by the early generations and the leading scholars. The Muʿtazilah said:

“There is agreement that Allah is not unjust, as the Quran and Sunnah indicate. An unjust person is someone who commits injustice, just as a just person is someone who acts justly. This is what people understand this designation to mean, on the basis of transmitted knowledge and reason.” They said: “If Allah created the acts of His servants that constitute injustice, He would be unjust.”

Their opponents countered:

“An unjust person is not someone who commits injustice, but someone in whom injustice subsists.”

Some of them said:

“An unjust person is someone who acquires injustice while being forbidden to commit it.”

Others said:

“An unjust person is someone who does something forbidden to him, or something he has been prohibited from doing.”

Still others said:

“Someone who commits injustice on his own account.”

What they mean is that the one who prohibits and forbids him must be someone other than himself, whom he is obliged to obey. Thus, they considered injustice on Allah’s part intrinsically inconceivable, just as it is impossible for there to be someone above Him who commands and prohibits Him. Both groups regard it as impossible for His acts to entail any judgment pertaining to the Lord Himself. These opponents could not dispute the Muʿtazilah’s contention that a just person is someone who acts justly; rather, they conceded it, although some people disputed it out of sheer obstinacy.