fails to know the truth is punished; and the position of the coercionist Jahmiyya, who say:

“The servant has no power whatsoever. Rather, Allah punishes solely by His will: He punishes one who has never committed any sin and grants bliss to one who has disbelieved and acted wickedly.”

Many later scholars have agreed with them on this. They say:

“He may punish children and the insane even though they have never committed any sin.”

Some of them categorically affirm that the children of unbelievers will be punished in the Hereafter. Others merely deem this possible and say, “I do not know what will happen.” They also deem it possible that He may forgive the most flagrantly sinful member of the Muslim community for no cause whatsoever, while punishing a righteous man for a minor misdeed, even though he possesses good deeds as great as mountains—again, for no cause whatsoever, but solely by His will.

The shared premise of both groups is that an agent possessed of power and choice selects one of two equivalent alternatives over the other without any determining factor. The Jahmiyya, however, say that with every event that comes into being, He selects without any determining factor. The Qadariyya, the Mu‘tazila, the Karrāmiyya, and various other groups among the jurists, Sufis, adherents of hadith, and others say:

“The initial origination and creation involved selection without any determining factor. Thereafter, however, He created causes and wise purposes and made events depend upon them.”

The Qadariyya and the coercionist Jahmiyya differed concerning injustice. The Qadariyya said:

“With respect to Him, injustice is the same as what we recognize as people’s injustice toward one another. Thus, if it is said that He creates His servants’ acts and wills everything that occurs, and it is also said that He punishes the disobedient, then this would be injustice like the injustice we commit.”

They called themselves “the People of Justice.” The Jahmiyya said:

“With respect to Him, injustice is that which cannot possibly exist; anything whose existence is possible is not injustice. For injustice consists either in violating the command of one whom it is obligatory to obey or in disposing of another’s property without