as being astray, by His statement: {"nor of those who are astray"}, and His attributing straying to them rather than attributing their being led astray to Himself, and His omitting to describe them as being led astray, as He described the Jews as those who earned His anger — is proof of the validity of what his brothers among the ignorant Qadarites say, out of his ignorance of the vastness of the speech of the Arabs and its varied modes.

And had the matter been as imagined by the fool whose condition we described, it would necessarily follow that every subject described with an attribute or to whom an action is attributed could not possibly involve a cause belonging to another; and that whenever there is a cause belonging to another, it would rightly have to be attributed to its causer. If that were necessary, it would mean that a speaker's statement, "The tree moved," when the wind moved it, or "The earth shook," when an earthquake moved it, would be incorrect, along with similar speech whose full enumeration would lengthen the book.

And in the statement of Allah, majestic be His praise: {until when you are in ships and they sail with them} [Sūrat Yūnus: 22] — in His attributing sailing to the ships, even though their sailing is caused by another driving them — there is that which demonstrates the error of the interpretation put forward by the one whose opinion we described regarding His statement: {"nor of those who are astray"}, and his claim that in Allah's attribution, majestic be His praise, of straying to those Christians to whom He attributed it, there is confirmation of what was claimed by those who deny that Allah, majestic be His praise, has any causal role in the actions of His creation through which their actions come to be, despite Allah's explicit clarification, mighty be His remembrance, in many verses of His revelation, that He is the One who leads astray and the Guide. Among these is His statement, majestic be His praise: {Have you seen he who has taken his own desire as his god, and Allah has led him astray upon knowledge and sealed his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? Who then will guide him after Allah? Will you not then remember?} [Sūrat al-Jāthiya: 23]. Thus He informed, majestic be His remembrance, that He alone is the One who leads astray and the Guide, to the exclusion of anyone else.

However, the Qurʾān was revealed in the language of the Arabs, as we have previously explained at the beginning of the book. And it is the custom of the Arabs to attribute an action to the one from whom it originated — even if its causer was other than the one from whom it originated