Shaykh Muḥammad Amān ibn ʿAlī al-Jāmī ؒ (d. 1416 AH / 1996 CE) explains in Al-ʿAqīdah al-Islāmiyyah wa-Tārīkhuhā (Islamic Creed and Its History):
Among the sects that appeared during the time of the Companions were the Qadariyyah. When the term Qadariyyah is used without qualification, it generally refers to those who deny divine decree (qadar), the followers of Maʿbad al-Juhanī. Sometimes, however, the term is applied to those who go to excess in affirming divine decree, to the point of saying that the servant is compelled to perform his voluntary actions. He performs them without choice and has no power over them. These people are known as the Jabriyyah, and the name Qadariyyah may also be applied to them.
Maʿbad al-Juhanī first advocated the creed of the Qadariyyah in Basra towards the end of the Companions’ era. He denied Allah’s prior knowledge, His recording of the decree and His all-encompassing will. He explicitly stated that Allah does not know decreed events until after they occur, let alone record or will them. Rather, the servants initiate their actions themselves, performing them without Allah knowing of those actions until after they have brought them about. Thus, they do not count the servants’ actions among the things decreed by Allah . They differ only over whether Allah is capable of producing actions like theirs.
They went to such extremes in denying divine decree and affirming the servant’s power that they made him a creator independently of Allah : according to their belief, each servant creates his own actions without Allah’s power intervening in his voluntary actions.
This is an aberrant belief, rejected by reason, Islamic law and logic. It is an imported idea: Maʿbad al-Juhanī, who brought it into prominence, took it from an unknown person said to be called Abū Yūnus al-Asāwarī. Maʿbad adopted it, and the resulting trial became widespread in Basra and the neighbouring areas. Al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ath-Thaqafī punished him on the orders of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān al-Umawī. This occurred in 80 AH.
The Companions’ Stance
When the innovation of the Qadariyyah appeared, scholars of the salaf among the Companions and the tābiʿūn hastened to condemn it, warn against it, and dissociate themselves from it and its adherents. They criticised it and explained its danger to belief in Allah , because belief in divine decree is the organising principle of tawḥīd. Whoever disbelieves in divine decree has invalidated his tawḥīd.
Some historical and biographical sources mention that when ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ؓ (d. 73 AH / 693 CE) heard Maʿbad al-Juhanī’s position, he dissociated himself from him and his objectionable statement, and made this known to the people. A similar account is reported from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbās ؓ. Ibn ʿAbbās wished that, if he could get hold of one of them, he could take his neck in his hand and squeeze it until death, or at least cut off his nose. By then, he had become blind. All this arose from his protectiveness of Allah’s religion and the Muslims’ creed, which was encountering such aberrant ideas for the first time.
Reports from the Prophet and the salaf condemn the Qadariyyah and describe them as the Magians of this ummah. Rather, they are worse in condition and more wretched, because they affirm many creators: according to their false claim, every servant among the jinn, humans and angels creates his own voluntary actions.
The Qadariyyah in the opposite sense, the Jabriyyah, make the servant compelled and driven to perform good or evil actions, then rewarded or punished. This is another deviation. The correct position lies between the two: it is the position of Ahl as-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, that there is no creator but Allah . The servant and his actions are creations of Allah , while the servant performs his actions by choice and abandons them by choice. This is the basis of moral responsibility and of recompense, whether good or bad. Knowledge rests with Allah , and the issue is discussed at greater length elsewhere.
Translator’s Note: Ibn ʿUmar reported that the Prophet said:
الْقَدَرِيَّةُ مَجُوسُ هَذِهِ الأُمَّةِ إِنْ مَرِضُوا فَلاَ تَعُودُوهُمْ وَإِنْ مَاتُوا فَلاَ تَشْهَدُوهُمْ
“The Qadariyyah are the Magians of this ummah. If they become ill, do not visit them, and if they die, do not attend their funerals.” (Sunan Abī Dāwūd, hadith 4691.)
Shaykh Muḥammad Nāṣir ad-Dīn al-Albānī ؒ (d. 1420 AH / 1999 CE) graded this report ḥasan.
References
Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath as-Sijistānī ؒ (d. 275 AH / 889 CE), Sunan Abī Dāwūd, hadith 4691, Arabic wording and the reported ḥasan grading of Al-Albānī.
Muḥammad Amān al-Jāmī, Al-ʿAqīdah al-Islāmiyyah wa-Tārīkhuhā, Dār al-Minhāj, Cairo, 1425 AH / 2004 CE, pp. 65–67 (PDF pages 67–69), scanned source.
