It is therefore known that an act does not come into existence unless there is a complete determining factor that entails its existence. That complete determining factor is the complete motive (and capacity) (1). A group of the Muʿtazila, including Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī and others, conceded this. They acknowledged that when the complete motive and complete capacity exist, the act necessarily comes into existence, and that the motive and capacity are created by Allah, Mighty and Majestic. This is, in fact, the position of the adherents of the Sunnah (2), who hold that:

(Allah creates the servants’ acts just as Allah creates all things, for the leading authorities of the Sunnah say:) (3)

Allah creates things by means of causes; He created in the servant a capacity (4) through which his act is brought into being; and that (5) the servant is truly the agent of his act. Thus, what they say about Allah’s creating the servant’s act through the servant’s will and capacity (6) is the same as what they say about His creating all other events through their causes.

However, this is not the position of those who deny causes and the powers inherent in bodies, deny the efficacy of the capacity (which the servant possesses) (7) through which the act comes into being, and say that the servant’s capacity has no effect whatsoever upon his act (8), as Jahm and his followers (9), al-Ashʿarī, and those who agreed with him maintain.

The position of these men is not that of the leading authorities of the Sunnah or of the majority of its adherents. Rather, this doctrine originated with Jahm ibn Safwān, for he affirmed the will of Allah Most High and denied that He has