What is the belief of the Jabriyyah, the Mu'tazilah, and the Qadiyyah regarding divine decree and destiny, and the names and attributes?

The Shaykh : I ask Allah to increase us and you in success and in spreading the correct da'wah, the da'wah of the Book and the correct Sunnah, and to increase us with you in success.

The questioner : O Allah, amen.

The Shaykh : How are you? I hope you are well.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah.

The Shaykh : Are you still in the mosque, leading the people in prayer, if Allah wills?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Yes, may Allah benefit us through you.

The questioner : May Allah bless you.

Another questioner : But he also intends to travel to Egypt.

The Shaykh : Good, good; I say good. Why?

The questioner : His contract ended here, and they asked al-Azhar—meaning the Jordanian University here—to renew his contract in order to teach people the knowledge of the Qur'an, tajwid, and recitation. They sent that directly to the Shaykh of al-Azhar, and the response came back. He is finishing the story for you.

Another questioner : They are eager for him to benefit the students there, so they told him, "No, he must come."

The Shaykh : This indicates his self-dignity.

Another questioner : Yes, this is dignity.

The Shaykh : Yes, Shaykh.

The questioner : I hope Allah will grant us success by the virtue of your supplication, O Shaykh.

The Shaykh : May Allah accept it. We ask Allah to make things easy for you in whatever direction you turn and to make people benefit from you.

The questioner : May Allah grant that, O Lord of the worlds.

The Shaykh : Today, O scholars, we are afflicted with a new generation. It is true that they love to proceed based on the Book and the Sunnah, but they do not give knowledge its due value. They imagine that one of them can become a scholar, a scholar in the true sense of the word, in the Book and the Sunnah, overnight. They imagine the matter to be so; then they are afflicted with much arrogance, conceit, and a love of showing off. As some of the wise said long ago, as you know: "The love of showing off cuts off the showing off." Therefore, some of them speak of what arises in their minds, imagining that it is knowledge itself. Often, they proceed in this field, which is claimed to be knowledge but is in reality ignorance, in response to some of the deviant beliefs from the Book and the Sunnah; but the result is that he or they treat the matter in the manner of Abu Nuwas: "And I treated it with that which was the disease."
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The Shaykh : ... For example, in this issue which we responded to him regarding, they claim that the way to refute the belief of compulsion (jabr), which arose among the Jabriyyah due to their exaggeration in believing in divine decree and destiny and their understanding of this belief, or their understanding of this belief, was a wrong understanding, necessitated compulsion from this belief. So they said, by its necessary consequence—in their claim—that it is as it came in some of their poetry: "He threw him into the sea bound, then said to him, 'Beware, beware of being wet by the water.'" This depicts the belief of the Jabriyyah. So where did the Jabriyyah come from? From believing in divine decree and destiny with a wrong understanding, with a wrong understanding. So the other group, the Mu'tazilah, treated this error. They said, "There is no way for us to refute compulsion except by what they relied upon, which is belief, namely qadar (divine decree); so there is no qadar." Both are at opposite extremes, and both are on the method of Abu Nuwas: "And I treated it with that which was the disease." And I see that many of the beliefs are misunderstood and are treated on this deviant method from the truth. And many of the great, famous scholars may fall into this, and their excuse for that is the ignorance of the common people, and perhaps some of the specialists with them in the correct belief, so they strike the wrong understanding by striking the correct belief. No doubt you know that among the correct beliefs that the Khalaf inherited from the Salaf is the belief in the descent of 'Isa (peace be upon him) in the last times, and it is accompanied by the belief in the emergence of the Mahdi.
... We return to the original issue of qadar. So how did the Mu'tazilah treat compulsion in a bad way? That is because they were unable to understand the divine qadar in a way that does not necessitate compulsion, but rather they participated with the Jabriyyah in their understanding of qadar; because it necessitates compulsion, and compulsion is false, and what is necessitated by what is false is false. And if they did not find a means—I mean, of course, the Mu'tazilah—to combat compulsion except by demolishing the belief in qadar. And they, without a doubt, cannot do so, and even if they are astray, they are believers in the Book of Allah the Exalted, so they cannot deny qadar as a term mentioned in the Noble Qur'an in more than one verse. They cannot deny that, otherwise they would exit the religion. But they—and this is the case of every astray sect that deviated from the Book and the Sunnah, that they believe in the terms of the Book but do not believe in their meanings—so they believed in qadar, but they interpreted qadar in a way that equates it to knowledge, as they did in many of the verses related to the divine attributes. For example, they deny that Allah Blessed and Exalted is He has the attributes of hearing and seeing, and they know, like the saying of the Lord of the Worlds, the verse of transcendence... , so they cannot deny these two attributes, that He is All-Hearing and All-Seeing, except by the same method by which they denied qadar, which is ta'wil (figurative interpretation), or rather ta'til (denial of the divine attributes). So they said, "The All-Hearing and All-Seeing means the All-Knowing." So likewise, they interpreted qadar to mean what? Knowledge, even though, as is not hidden from you, knowledge is an essential attribute; whereas the divine decree is an attribute of action, from the attributes of actions. So they mixed up this essential attribute with the attribute of knowledge. Why this mixing? To strike compulsion. But they were afflicted as the proverb says in some countries: "They were under the rain, so they became under the gutter." Is this proverb known to you?

The questioner : Yes, exactly.

The Shaykh : This is it. And the old Arab poet, as you know, says: "Sa'd led them, and Sa'd was wrapped up / This is not, O Sa'd, how camels are led." It is necessary to combine all the divine attributes derived from the Book of Allah and the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and it is not permissible to strike some of them with others or deny some of them at the expense of others. And the best that Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said on this occasion
“Knowledge: Allah said, His Messenger said, / The Companions said; it is not deception.
What knowledge has placed you in the foolishness of disagreement *** Between the Messenger and the opinion of a jurist.
Nor by denial of the attributes and their negation, *** Out of fear of ta'til [denial of the divine attributes] and tashbih [likening Allah to creation]."
And this is the just position: no ta'til (denial of the divine attributes) and no tashbih (likening Allah to creation), but rather it is belief as Allah the Exalted intended by these verses and the hadiths of the Messenger (peace be upon him) which establish the divine attributes. The point is, I return to what I had concluded, that many of the scholars, when they want to treat some of the deviations that afflicted the masses in the past and present, they treat them with a deviation like it or more dangerous than it. And I gave as an example the belief in the descent of 'Isa (peace be upon him).