They therefore say:
Performing what is commanded and refraining from what is forbidden benefits everyone who performs the former and refrains from the latter. As for the command itself and the sending of the messengers, these are a general benefit (1) to Allah’s servants, even if they entail evil for some of them. The same applies to all else that Allah decrees: benefit, mercy, and good predominate therein. Even if this includes harm to some people, Allah has another wisdom in it (2).
This is the position of most jurists, the people of hadith and Sufism, [and groups among] the speculative theologians (3)—other than the Muʿtazilites—such as the Karrāmiyya and others.
They say: Even if some of what Allah creates harms certain people or causes harm—as sins do—there must be, in all of it, some wisdom and benefit for which Allah created it. His mercy has prevailed over His wrath. These issues are discussed at length elsewhere.
He merely recounted the various positions, so we have clarified what is correct and incorrect in his account. What he related did not come from his Rāfidī teachers; rather, it came from the Muʿtazilites, such as the followers of Abū Alī, Abū Hāshim, Abū al-Husayn al-Basrī, and others.
They mentioned this specifically in refutation of the Ashʿaris (4), for the Ashʿaris and some who affirm divine predestination agreed with al-Jahm ibn Safwān on the basis of his doctrine of compulsion. Although they disputed with him over some of its details in a merely verbal dispute, they advanced an unintelligible position; but they do not agree with him