were sent to secure and perfect all that is beneficial, and to eliminate and reduce all that is harmful. The followers of the messengers are therefore the most complete of all people in this regard. As for those who reject the messengers, the matter is reversed in their case: they pursue what is harmful and thwart what is beneficial, and are thus the worst of people. Even so, there must be things they seek to obtain and things they avoid, and they must collectively ward off whatever harms them (1), including oppression, shameful acts, and the like. If one of them wronged another by violating his life, property, honor, and inviolability (2), and the wronged party sought retaliation and punishment, no rational person would accept the wrongdoer’s appeal to the divine decree as an excuse.

If he were to say, “Excuse me, for this had been decreed for me,” they would say to him (3), “If this were done to you (4), and your oppressor appealed to the divine decree against you, you would not accept it from him.”

Accepting this argument would necessarily entail a corruption incompatible with any sound order. Since appealing to the divine decree in this way is rejected by the innate dispositions and reason of all people—even though the vast majority of people affirm the divine decree—it is known that affirming the divine decree does not preclude rejecting its use as an excuse. Rather, one must believe in the divine decree and must reject any appeal to it as an excuse.

Since disputation (5) falls into two kinds, true and false, and speech likewise falls into two kinds, true and false (6), and since it is a feature of Arabic usage that when a genus is divided into two kinds, one nobler than the other, the Arabs designate the nobler one by its specific name (7) and refer to the other