volition, will, love, and pleasure as belonging to a single category (1). They also treat love, pleasure, and wrath as having the same meaning as will. This is the well-known position attributed to al-Asharī, most of his followers, and a group of jurists from among the followers of Mālik, al-Shāfiī, and Ahmad who agree with them.
The majority of Ahl al-Sunnah, across all groups, as well as many of al-Asharī’s followers and others (2), distinguish will from love and pleasure. They say:
Although He wills sins, He neither loves them nor is pleased with them. Rather, He hates them, is displeased with them, and forbids them. Thus, they distinguish Allah’s volition from His love. This was the position of the Salaf without exception.
Abū al-Maālī al-Juwaynī stated that this was the position of the earlier adherents of Ahl al-Sunnah and that al-Asharī opposed them, holding (3) that will is identical with love (4).
They say:
Whatever Allah wills comes to pass, and whatever He does not will does not come to pass. Thus, everything Allah wills, He has created. His love, however, pertains to His command (5): whatever He commands, He loves. For this reason, the jurists (6) agreed that if someone swearing an oath were to say: (7)
(1) In place of “They are those who agree with the Qadariyya . . . and treat love and pleasure as a single category,” N and M read: “They are those who treat will as a single category.”
(2) “And others” is omitted in B, A, and M.
(3) M reads: “and that the Asharites differed from them, so he held”; N: “and that the Asharites opposed them, so he held.”
(4) Mustajā Zādah commented on this passage as follows: “I have seen in the writings of Imām al-Haramayn that Allah Most High loves disbelief and is pleased with it—exalted is Allah above that. He—may Allah pardon [him]—held divergent views: in one work he explicitly affirmed one doctrine, and in another work a doctrine contrary to it. Thus, in al-Irshād he explicitly stated: ‘We profess before Allah Most High that the servant’s power has no effect upon the servant’s voluntary acts; rather, they are solely created and brought into being by Allah Most High.’ In al-Risāla al-Nizāmiyya, however, he explicitly stated that the servant possesses power and has an effect upon those acts. Indeed, the commentator on al-Maqāsid denied that the Imam had made such a statement, citing his words in al-Irshād as evidence. Perhaps he had not seen al-Risāla al-Nizāmiyya.”
(5) B and A read: “It is affected by His command”; N and M: “It pertains to His command.”
(6) B, A, and N read: “the scholars.”
(7) B and A read: “if he says.”