“Those are the ones in whose hearts He has inscribed faith and strengthened them with a spirit from Him.”

[Surah al-Mujādalah: 22]

And Allah Most High said:

“Whoever Allah wills to guide, He opens his heart to Islam; and whoever He wills to lead astray, He makes his heart constricted and distressed, as though he were climbing into the sky.”

[Surah al-An'ām: 125]

The Qadariyya, however, held that His religious blessing (1) was the same for both groups. They said that the servant was given (2) a capacity suited to both faith and unbelief, and that one of the two then proceeds from him without any newly arising cause capable of determining one over the other. They claimed that an agent endowed with power and choice determines one of the two alternatives within his power (3) over the other without a determinant, and they asserted this regarding both the Lord’s power and the servant’s power.

Many who affirm the divine decree agreed with them on this regarding the Lord’s power (4)—namely, those who maintain that nothing connected with His will and power subsists in Him. [Indeed, many who affirm the divine decree agreed with them concerning it] (5). Consequently, al-Rāzī (6) and others like him, who use that argument against the Qadariyya (7), contradict themselves. When debating them over the creation of acts, they use that argument against them, saying: “The existence of a contingent thing cannot be preferred over its nonexistence except by a complete determinant, regardless of whether it proceeds from an agent endowed with power and choice or from something else.”

(8) They discussed the question of the origination of the world, and it was said to them: “An originated thing must have an originated cause that is itself originated.” (9) They replied with the answer (10) of the Qadariyya, saying: