the agent’s being distinguished by performing the act would amount to preferring one of two equivalent alternatives (1) over the other without any determining factor. The falsity of this is known by necessity. Indeed, this is the very principle upon which they based their proof of the Maker. If they undermine it, their way of proving the Maker is foreclosed.

At most, they have said: “An agent possessed of power and choice gives preference to one of two things within his power over the other without any determining factor, as in the case of a hungry or frightened person.” But this is false, for when the necessitating causes (2) are equal in every respect, preference is impossible.

Moreover, as for the statement, “He gives preference without a determining factor”: if the words “gives preference” signify something beyond the occurrence of the act (3), that very thing is the determining cause. But if they signify nothing beyond it, then the state of the act before its occurrence (4) would be the same as its state (5) when it occurred (6). Yet the act occurred in one of the two states rather than the other (7), without any determining factor. This (8) is a flagrant denial of reason.

Since the foundational doctrine of the Qadariyya is that the person who performs acts of obedience and the person who refrains from them are equal in the assistance and enabling power granted to them, their principle (9) precluded there being, concomitant with the act, a capacity specific to it (10);