Prayer for a Good End and Dissociation from Deviant Doctrines

1. Prayer for steadfastness in faith

وَنَسْأَلُ اللَّهَ تَعَالَى أَنْ يُثَبِّتَنَا عَلَى الْإِيمَانِ وَيَخْتِمَ لَنَا بِهِ.
We ask Allah Most High to keep us firm upon faith and to grant that our lives end in that faith.

Steadfastness in faith is not merely a declaration made at one point in life. It means that conviction and adherence to religion remain firm. A believer continues to need Allah's protection and enablement.

The prayer for a good ending seeks the preservation of faith to the final moment. Confidence in one's learning or past deeds must not turn into heedlessness about this need.

2. Seeking protection from desires and conflicting opinions

وَيَعْصِمَنَا مِنَ الْأَهْوَاءِ الْمُخْتَلِفَةِ وَالْآرَاءِ الْمُتَفَرِّقَةِ وَالْمَذَاهِبِ الرَّدِيَّةِ.
And may He protect us from diverse passions, divergent opinions, and corrupt doctrinal positions.

Ahwāʾ denotes inclinations that lead a person away from truth. Divergent opinions here concern rival doctrinal approaches that depart from sound belief.

Protecting religion is not simply a matter of debating views. It also involves avoiding self-serving desires, partisanship, and unwarranted confidence in one's own judgments. That is why both steadfastness and protection are sought.

3. Named doctrinal factions and dissociation

مِثْلَ الْمُشَبِّهَةِ وَالْمُعْتَزِلَةِ وَالْجَهْمِيَّةِ وَالْجَبْرِيَّةِ وَالْقَدَرِيَّةِ.
Such as the Mushabbihah, Muʿtazilah, Jahmiyyah, Jabriyyah, and Qadariyyah.

These five names designate distinct doctrinal positions: likening the Creator to creation, reshaping beliefs through a particular rationalist framework, negating divine attributes, treating human beings as entirely compelled, and giving humans independent authorship of their acts.

Each position must be distinguished from the others. Resemblance and negation concern divine attributes, whereas compulsion and Qadari doctrine concern human action and decree.

4. Opposing the Sunnah and the united community

مِنَ الَّذِينَ خَالَفُوا السُّنَّةَ وَالْجَمَاعَةَ وَاتَّبَعُوا الْبِدْعَةَ وَالضَّلَالَةَ.
Among those who opposed the Sunnah and the united community and followed innovation and error.

The Sunni and communal path here rests upon following religious evidence, properly affirming Allah's attributes, and holding a balanced understanding of human acts. Doctrines contrary to that path are disavowed rather than adopted.

وَنَحْنُ مِنْهُمْ بُرَآءُ وَهُمْ عِنْدَنَا ضُلَّالٌ وَأَرْدِيَاءُ.
We dissociate ourselves from them; we regard their beliefs as misguided and blameworthy.

Dissociation means refusing false doctrines and maintaining a clear religious commitment; it does not entail claiming personal knowledge of the hidden inner state of every individual.

5. Protection, enablement, and return to Allah

وَبِاللَّهِ الْعِصْمَةُ وَالتَّوْفِيقُ، وَاللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِالصَّوَابِ وَإِلَيْهِ الْمَرْجِعُ وَالْمَآبُ.
Protection and enablement belong to Allah; Allah knows best what is correct, and to Him is the return and final destination.

ʿIṣmah in this prayer refers to protection from error, and tawfīq to divine help in remaining on the right course. Knowing what is correct does not eliminate a person's need for Allah's help.

Allah knows best what is correct expresses humility, while to Him is the return recalls accountability before Allah in the Hereafter.

6. The central claim of the Mushabbihah

The Mushabbihah are described as likening Allah's essence and attributes to those of created beings. The position imagines the Creator in terms of the bodily characteristics of creation.

Body, limbs, blood, flesh, and skin are features of created corporeal beings. Attributing comparable features to the divine essence is tashbīh, for it assigns creaturely characteristics to the Creator.

Affirming divine attributes is not the same as attributing a created body or form to Allah. Proper transcendence excludes such resemblance.

7. The difference between resemblance and affirmation

Affirming Allah's attributes does not require understanding them through the physical properties of created beings. The reality of an attribute must be distinguished from a creaturely manner imposed upon it.

The error ascribed to the Mushabbihah is treating body and limbs, which are features of creation, as appropriate attributes of Allah. One denies these creaturely modes without denying the divine attributes themselves.

Thus affirmation of attributes and denial of resemblance remain together: Allah possesses His attributes, but He is not like His creation.

8. Dāwūd al-Jawāribī and the historical attribution

Dāwūd al-Jawāribī is mentioned in connection with the historical attribution of the Mushabbihah, and the earliest association of this position is ascribed to him.

His death is placed in the period between 95 and 110 AH. This attribution helps identify the historical discussion; the doctrinal issue itself is not his name but the claim of resemblance between Allah and created beings.

Attributing created bodily properties to Allah remains distinct from affirming His true divine attributes.

9. The Muʿtazilah and Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ

The Muʿtazilah are associated with the early second Islamic century. Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ al-Ghazzāl is identified as the founder of this movement; his death is dated to 131 AH.

In the gathering of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, a disagreement arose over the status of a Muslim who commits a major sin. Wāṣil maintained that such a person leaves faith without entering unbelief.

The words «هٰذَا الرَّجُلُ قَدِ اعْتَزَلَ عَنَّا»—“This man has withdrawn from us”—are associated with that dispute. The name Muʿtazilah is traced to this separation.

10. Reason as the governing standard in Muʿtazilite thought

Within the account of the Muʿtazilah, reason is treated as the determining criterion of doctrinal claims. Texts not fitting their reasoning were reinterpreted; in some cases their readings of transmitted texts were also rejected.

They invoked rational judgments of good and bad (ḥusn and qubḥ) in making claims about actions and moral obligations. This forms part of the dispute over the place of reason in relation to revelation.

Using reason and making one's reason the authority over revealed texts are not identical. The criticism addresses the latter approach.

11. The five foundational principles of the Muʿtazilah

The five central Muʿtazilite principles are:
1. ʿAdl (justice) — a particular account of divine justice in relation to human evil acts.
2. Tawḥīd (oneness) — reasoning about divine unity that leads to treating the Qur'an as created.
3. Infādh al-waʿīd — holding that the threatened punishment must be carried out.
4. Al-manzilah bayna al-manzilatayn — assigning the major sinner an intermediate status between faith and unbelief.
5. Commanding good and forbidding evil — a particular political and practical interpretation of this duty.

The labels sound like familiar religious terms; the disagreement concerns the particular meanings and consequences attached to them.

12. The principle of justice and creation of acts

Under their particular principle of ʿadl, Allah is treated as the creator of good alone, while evil acts of servants are not attributed to Him as Creator.

The argument claims that if Allah created evil acts and then punished the sinner, this would be unjust; because Allah is just, His creation of evil acts is denied.

In the Sunni position presented here, Allah is the Creator of all actions, while the servant's acquisition and moral responsibility remain. Divine creation of actions does not imply injustice on Allah's part.

13. The principle of unity and the status of the Qur’an

The particular Muʿtazilite reading of tawḥīd regards the Qur'an as created. Its stated reasoning is that, if the Qur'an were also eternal, there would be more than one eternal reality.

Eternity belongs to Allah, while His speech is His attribute, not another independent divine being. Calling the divine speech created undermines the proper affirmation of Allah's attributes.

Allah's essence and attributes are not separate deities, and affirming divine attributes does not compromise His oneness.

14. The enforcement of threatened punishment

The principle of infādh al-waʿīd requires that punishment announced for sinful servants be carried out. Under this view, fulfilling the threat is made obligatory for Allah.

As described in this doctrine, pardon of the threatened sinner is not allowed, on the grounds that doing otherwise would conflict with the announced threat.

The Sunni creed affirms Allah as Forgiving and Merciful. His will and pardon are not constrained by a rule that every sinner must necessarily undergo punishment.

15. The intermediate status between faith and unbelief

الْمَنْزِلَةُ بَيْنَ الْمَنْزِلَتَيْنِ
A position between two positions.

This doctrine treats the committer of a major sin as outside faith but not inside unbelief, assigning an independent status between the two.

In the Sunni position, committing a major sin does not automatically expel a person from faith unless it entails something that invalidates faith itself. The reality of the sin is distinguished from the persistence of fundamental belief.

16. A distinctive reading of commanding good and forbidding evil

الأَمْرُ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَالنَّهْيُ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ
Commanding what is right and forbidding what is wrong.

In the Muʿtazilite interpretation discussed here, commanding good and forbidding evil are obligatory. It also maintains that revolt and armed confrontation against an unjust ruler are necessary.

The general duty to promote good and resist wrong is a recognized religious category, but regarding revolt and armed fighting as categorically required is a separate political claim. It is that particular conclusion which is described here.

17. The Jahmiyyah and denial of attributes

The Jahmiyyah take their name from Jahm ibn Ṣafwān al-Samarqandī. Their position is described in terms of negating or emptying Allah's attributes of affirmation.

They are also associated with the claim that Paradise and Hell will pass away. Alongside the denial of attributes, this creates a separate disagreement about the permanence of the two abodes of the Hereafter.

Jahm ibn Ṣafwān is said to have adopted positions associated with Jaʿd ibn Dirham. His death is dated to 130 AH.

18. The Jabriyyah: the human being as wholly compelled

The Jabriyyah regard the human being as wholly compelled in all actions. They do not grant the servant any meaningful choice and attribute each action directly to divine decree, will, and power.

Under this position, grounds for praising or blaming the servant for good or bad conduct disappear, because the servant is not treated as performing voluntary acts.

Affirmation of Allah's power and decree is distinct from regarding the servant as entirely without choice. The latter is the extreme position of jabr.

19. The Qadariyyah: denial of divine decree in human acts

The Qadariyyah take their designation from qadar, although the position described under that name denies divine decree over human acts.

It regards the human being as an independent creator of personal acts, taking those acts outside Allah's decree, power, and will.

The position is also described as claiming that Allah knows events only when they occur, not beforehand. This contradicts the affirmation of Allah's prior and encompassing knowledge.

20. Jabr and Qadar: two opposing extremes

The Jabriyyah deny human choice, whereas the Qadariyyah make the human being an independent creator of acts. The two claims are opposed, yet both move away from the balanced account of human actions.

Creation belongs to Allah, while acts are attributed to servants by way of acquisition and choice. This distinction avoids both total human compulsion and independence from the Creator.

Divine decree, Allah's prior knowledge, and human accountability can thus be affirmed together.

21. The key distinctions in attributes, threats, and actions

Mushabbihah — likening divine attributes to created attributes.
Muʿtazilah — adopting a particular rationalist framework and its five principles.
Jahmiyyah — negating divine attributes and claiming that Paradise and Hell will end.
Jabriyyah — treating the human being as wholly compelled.
Qadariyyah — making humans independent creators of their acts and denying prior divine knowledge.

In contrast, the affirmed creed combines divine attributes and incomparability, Allah's complete power and knowledge, human choice and acquisition, and divine forgiveness and justice.