Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory

by Duncan Black MacDonald

And He, whose Majesty is majestic, speaks with a Word (kalam). This Word is a quality from all eternity, not belonging to the genus of letters and sounds, a quality that is incompatible with coming to silence and that has no weakness.

God Most High speaks with this Word, commanding and prohibiting and narrating. And the Qur’an is the uncreated Word of God, repeated by our tongues, heard by our ears, written in our copies, preserved in our hearts, yet not simply a transient state (hal) in these [i.e., the tongues, ears, etc.]. And Creating (takwin) is a quality of God Most High from all eternity, and it is the Creating of the world and of every one of its parts at the time of its becoming existent, and this quality of Creating is not the thing created, according to our opinion.* And Willing is a quality of God Most High from all eternity, existing in His essence.

And that there is a Vision (ru’ya) of God Most High is allowed by reason and certified by tradition (naql). A proof on authority has come down with the affirmation that believers have a Vision of God Most High in Paradise and that He is seen, not in a place or in a direction or by facing or the joining of glances or the placing of a distance between him who sees and God Most High.

And God Most High is the Creator of all actions of His creatures, whether of unbelief or belief, of obedience or of rebellion; all of them are by the will of God and His sentence and His conclusion and His decreeing.

And to His creatures belong actions of choice (ikhtiyar),* for which they are rewarded or punished, and the good in these is by the good pleasure of God (rida) and the vile in them is not by His good pleasure.*

And the ability to do the action (istita‘a) goes along with the action and is the essence of the power (qudra) by which the action takes place, and this word “ability” means the soundness of the causes and instruments and limbs. And the validity of the imposition of the task (taklif) is based upon this ability,* and the creature has not a task imposed upon him that is not in his power.

And the pain which is found in one who is beaten as a consequence of being beaten by any man, and the state of being broken in glass as a consequence of its being broken by any man, and such things, all that is created by God Most High, and the creature has no part in its creation and a slain man is dead because his appointed time (ajal) has come; and death exists in a slain man and is created by God Most High, and the appointed time is one.[6]

And that which is forbidden (haram) is still Sustenance (rizq), and each one receives his own Sustenance whether it consists of permitted or of forbidden things; and let no one imagine that a man shall not eat his Sustenance or that another than he shall eat his Sustenance.

And God leadeth astray whom He wills and guideth aright whom He wills, and it is not incumbent upon God Most High to do that which may be best (aslah) for the creature.

The punishment of the grave for unbelievers and for some rebellious ones of the believers, and the bliss of the obedient in the grave, and the questioning by Munkar and Nakir are established by proofs of authority. And the Quickening of the Dead (ba‘th) is a Verity, and the Weighing is a Verity, and the Book is a Verity and the Tank (hawd) is a Verity, and the Bridge, as-Sirat, is a Verity, and the Garden is a Verity, and the Fire is a Verity, and they are both created, existing, continuing; they shall not pass away and their people shall not pass away.