itself and exists independently of his belief—not that, through his belief, he seeks to confer upon the command and the act an attribute they did not previously possess. No jurist exercising independent judgment aims to establish rulings for acts through his own belief, or to institute a religion that Allah has not authorized. Rather, he seeks to believe in Allah’s ruling and religion. Nor does he intend to take acts that are equal both in themselves and with respect to Allah’s command, and then regard one as obligatory upon himself and another as forbidden, without any distinguishing reason specific to those acts. This point deserves careful reflection.

If a believer seeking Allah’s ruling knows that those acts are equal in Allah’s sight, that He has not distinguished between them by any command or prohibition, and that they are equal in themselves, with no distinction between them in goodness or badness, benefit or harm, then this belief of his entails their equality and equivalence. For him subsequently to believe that one is obligatory, so that whoever omits it deserves blame, while another is forbidden, so that whoever performs it deserves punishment, is a contradiction and sophistry in reason, and disbelief and heresy in religion.

As for the former, believing in equality and equivalence is incompatible with believing that one is preferable or superior to another, let alone that one is obligatory and another forbidden. How, then, can a rational person hold these two contradictory beliefs?

Unless he is a foolish disbeliever who says:

“I make this obligatory and that forbidden without any command from Allah or any rational ground for preferring either one.”

If he does this, he is instituting as religion something Allah has not authorized. Moreover, it is a religion whose invalidity is known through reason, since he has deemed acts that are equal