prevents him from standing. A firm will directed toward one of two opposites is incompatible with willing the other (1), and obligating a disbeliever to believe falls into this category.

Such a thing is not rationally reprehensible [in the judgment of any rational person] (2). Rather, rational people agree that a person may be given commands and prohibitions concerning something (3) he is incapable of at the time the command or prohibition is issued because he is engaged in its opposite, provided that he can abandon that opposite (4) and perform the opposite act he has been commanded to do.

The only dispute is whether this should be called imposing an obligation that cannot be fulfilled, since it imposes an obligation concerning something (5) for which the capacity concomitant with the act is absent. Among those who affirm divine decree are some who include this under imposing an obligation that cannot be fulfilled, as held by Qadi Abū Bakr, Qadi Abū Yaʿlā, and others.

They say: What cannot be fulfilled is of two kinds: what cannot be fulfilled because of incapacity, and what cannot be fulfilled (6) because one is engaged in its opposite.

Others say: This does not come under what cannot be fulfilled. This is more consistent with the Quran, the Sunnah, and the statements of the Salaf. A person capable of performing Hajj who has been commanded to do so but does not is not said to have been obligated to do what he cannot fulfill (7). Nor is one who is commanded to perform ritual purification and prayer but lazily neglects them said to have been obligated (8) to do what he cannot fulfill.

The statement of Allah Most High, “And they were unable to hear” [Surah al-Kahf: 101], was not meant