As for Allah's saying...

As for Allah's saying: And if thy Lord had willed, whoever is in the earth would have believed, all of them, all together [10:99], it was only to stress His Omnipotence and that He is able if He wills – to constrain them to believe by coercion and compulsion, but it is His will that they should believe freely and by choice. The rest of the verse makes this (i.e., what we have said) plain: Will you then constrain men to become believers? [ibid].

He is able to constrain them to believe if He wills, but He does not, even though it would be an easy task for Him if He willed. All the other verses which they adduce in support of their opinion are to be interpreted in the same way.

As for the Predestinarians (Mujabbirah) they avoid asserting that Allah wills that He should be disobeyed or denied and that His saints should be killed and His friends abused, by saying that everything should be in accordance with His fore-knowledge, and He intends that disobedience to Him should be a sin and absolutely forbidden.

In fact, they commit the very error which they eschewed and implicate themselves in what they abhor, because it was in the eternal knowledge of Allah that bad is bad, and what is in the eternal, universal knowledge of Allah should be, then what is the validity of their fleeing from a thing to its double, and taking refuge from one meaning in another that exactly reproduces it. How can they deal like this with intelligent people?

Is their assumption not like the assertion of one who says: "I do not abuse Zayd but I abuse Abu ‘Amr, and they are one and the same." And, like the self-contradictory speech of the Jews who said: "We do not deny Muhammad (peace be upon him and his progeny) but we deny Ahmad." This is but foolishness and ignorance on their part, and futile and weak effort on the part of those who rely on it. [^1]: See p.98. [^2]: * * Not found in N. Previous…