***** The Mutazilites and Shi'a stand in opposition to al-Ash'ari and his school.

***** The Mutazilites and Shi'a stand in opposition to al-Ash'ari and his school. Out of all the attributes of God, they have selected justice to be a principle of their creed. Relying on both transmitted and rational proofs, they have also refuted and rejected as incompatible with the principle of justice, the doctrines of the unmediated effect of divine destiny and the predetermination of man's acts.

They believe that justice is the basis of God's acts, both in the ordering of the universe and in the establishing of laws. Just as human acts can be weighed according to the criteria of good and bad, the acts of the Creator are also subject to the same criteria.

Since the logic of reason determines that justice is inherently praise worthy and injustice inherently reprehensible, an object of worship whose characteristics include infinite intelligence and spirit, will never undertake an act that reason regards as impermissible. When we say that God is just, it means that His all-knowing and creative essence does nothing that is contrary to wisdom and benefit.

The concept of wisdom, when applied to the Creator, does not mean that He chooses the best means for attaining His goals or remedying His deficiencies, for it is only man who is called on to move from deficiency toward perfection. God's concern is to make beings emerge from deficiency and impel them toward perfection and the aims inherent in their own essences.

God's wisdom consists of this, that He first implants a form of His favor within each phenomenon, and then, after bestowing existence upon it, impels it toward the perfection of its capacities through a further exercise of His generosity. Justice has, then, an extensive meaning, which naturally includes the avoidance of oppression and all foolish acts.

Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq, peace be upon him, says in explanation of God's justice: “ Justice in the case of God means that you should not ascribe anything to God that if you were to do it would cause you to be blamed and reproached .”[^1] With man, oppression and all the forms of corrupt activity in which he engages, derive, without doubt, from ignorance and lack of awareness and need coupled with innate lowliness; sometimes, too, they are the reflection of hatred and enmity, which leap forth from man's inner being like a spark.

Numerous are those people who are disgusted with their own oppressiveness and corruption.