A number of persons of our people have narrated from Ahmad ibn abu ‘Abd Allah from ‘Uthman ibn ‘Isa from Isma‘il ibn Jabir who has said the following:

“In the mosque of Madina there was a person who spoke of the issue of predetermination and people had gathered around him. I said to him, ‘O you, can I ask you a question?’ He said, ‘Yes, you may do so.’ I then said, ‘Can there be a thing in the kingdom of Allah the Majestic, the Glorious, that He may not want?’ He remained thinking for a while and then said to me, ‘O you, if I said that there can be something in His kingdom He does not want it means that He is defeated. If I say that there is nothing in His kingdom that He may not want I am giving you permission to commit sin. “I then told the story of that determinist to abu ‘Abd Allah , who said, ‘He (the determinist man) looked for his own interest. Had he said something else he would have been destroyed.’”