Allah Most High says:

“So what is the matter with these people that they can hardly understand any statement?”

“Whatever good befalls you”—that is, any blessing—“is from Allah, and whatever misfortune befalls you is from yourself”—that is, because of your sin.

As He says:

“Whatever misfortune befalls you is because of what your own hands have earned.”

And He says:

“And if misfortune befalls them because of what their hands have sent forth.”

As for the third category in this matter, they are people who mix truth with falsehood, standing between the people of faith and goodness and the worst of people. They engage in false speculation about divine decree. Some hold that they themselves guide themselves and lead themselves astray, and bring about their own acts of obedience and disobedience, without any assistance from Him or His granting them success in obedience, and without His withholding His help from them in disobedience. Others deny that they have any action, ability, or say in the matter.

Some of the latter cast off the commands and prohibitions altogether, thus becoming the most disbelieving of all creatures. Yet they contradict themselves in invoking divine decree as an excuse, for there must be actions they love and actions they hate. They, like everyone else, must ward off the harm caused by the actions of aggressors. If they treat good and evil deeds as equal, they cannot censure anyone, repel an oppressor, or respond to a wrongdoer—even if they allow others to do to them whatever anyone desires, and other such things under which life cannot be sustained