The resurrection and the other matters established by revelation

— from all faults and sins, absolutely (1), according to the true position in our view, contrary to the Muʻtazilah, who maintain the admissibility of an act of disobedience issuing from them. And they are supported by the miracles that prove them to be sent from the Wise, the All-Aware. The miracle is the custom-breaking event issuing from God Most High at the hand of a claimant to prophecy, conforming to what he has claimed, as a proof of him. And the messengers whom we are obliged to know by their names are those mentioned in the verse, “And that was Our argument, which We gave to Ibrāhīm,” and so forth (2), together with seven: our master and our prophet Muḥammad — God bless him and grant him peace — the seal of the prophets and messengers; our master Ādam, peace be upon him, the father of mankind; our master Idrīs; our master Hūd; our master Shuʻayb; our master Ṣāliḥ; and our master Dhū al-Kifl — blessing and peace be upon them all. And our Prophet, the Hāshimī, the Qurashī, the Arab, the unlettered, the bearer of the purified Islamic Law whose light shone forth from the East and lit up the West and stretched north and south until it covered the broad earth, came confirming what they had brought and holding their laws valid, save what he was inspired to abrogate.

The Raising of the Dead and Other Matters Known by Revelation

And it is among our obligations to give credence to everything this noble Prophet brought us. So we believe in the questioning of Munkar and Nakīr in the grave, and that in the grave there is bliss or torment for the body and the spirit together, even though the living among us does not apprehend that by his senses, the life of the grave being among the things God has veiled from some of His creatures — and this contrary to the Muʻtazilah, who say that all of it is spiritual and not bodily. And we believe in the gathering: we are raised after death, alive, in our bodies and our spirits, when the term of the world has run out and the Last Day has come; and we are gathered and brought to account, at the standing-place of the Resurrection, for our deeds, nothing of what we sent ahead escaping us — contrary to the majority of the philosophers, who believe in the inadmissibility of a bodily gathering, and who fall into unbelief by this belief. And every man comes with his record about his neck; and a scale of justice is set up, and it is a real one, having two pans; and the Path is stretched over the back of Gehenna, and those of the standing-place pass over it, and the saved arrive at the Garden and the losers fall into the Blaze — all of this contrary to the philosophers in their claim that all of it is spiritual and not sensory. And the unbelievers abide in the Fire for ever, and the believers abide in the Gardens for ever; and they shall see their Lord in the Garden with their eyes, as has come down in the ḥadīth and as the noble verse has indicated, while holding [Him] free of everything that would suggest corporeality with respect to God Most High — contrary to the Muʻtazilah, who deny the admissibility of that. All of this is by His will, Most High, as He has promised and as He has threatened in His Book and upon the tongue of His Prophet — God bless him and grant him peace — and nothing of it is an obligation upon Him.

And the Garden and the Fire are created now and existent — contrary to the Muʻtazilah; and intercession for sinners is true — contrary to them also. And the servant has an acquisition (kasb) in his voluntary acts, and it is incumbent upon us to comply with the commands and to shun the things prohibited; and God leads astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills; and the servant has no efficacy in his act — contrary to the Muʻtazilah, who say that he creates his own acts, and to the Jabriyyah, who deny acquisition altogether (1), whose doctrine entails the lapsing of the obligations of the Law. And the appointed term is one. And provision is apportioned, and striving to seek it is sanctioned, and trusting in Him (Most High) for it brings ease; and everything from which benefit is drawn is provision. And a grave sin does not put the one who commits it outside faith; and “God does not forgive that a partner be set up with Him, but He forgives what is less than that to whom He wills.”

— Notes —

[28] «1» This absolute formulation is the doctrine of the Shīʻah, and some of the later authorities adopted it. The majority distinguished between grave sins and light ones, and so allowed [of the prophets] such light sins as are not base.

[28] «2» That is, to the end of the verses that follow it.

[29] (1) The Jabriyyah do not deny the occurrence of the servant’s act, nor its being called acquisition; they deny only its efficacy, so that their statement is identical with the statement of the Ashʻarīs. And the doctrine of the people of the Sunnah among the forebears of the community is that the servant’s acquisition is efficacious in his deed, like all other causes, but by God Most High’s creating — for it is He who created for him the limbs, the sensory faculties and the intellect, who bestowed upon him knowledge, will and power, and who made the causes subservient to him; so he is not independent with complete independence. And our Shaykh, the author, proceeded upon this in the Risālat al-Tawḥīd.