Qadariyah

Qadariyyah (Arabic: قَدَرِيَّة, romanized: Qadariyya), also Qadarites or Kadarites, from qadar (قدر), meaning "power", was originally a derogatory term designating early Islamic theologians who rejected the concept of predestination in Islam, qadr, and asserted that humans possess absolute free will, making them responsible for their actions, justifying divine punishment and absolving God of responsibility for evil in the world. Originally, the Qadarites also reject belief in the prior knowledge of God, and they deny that God wrote the decrees concerning His creation before He created the heavens and the earth; Consequently, their belief goes against the teachings of Sunni Islam. Some of their doctrines were later adopted by the Mu'tazilis and rejected by the Ash'aris. They argued that evil actions of human beings could not be decreed by God, as they would have to be if there was no free will and all events in the universe were determined by God. Qadariyyah was one of the first philosophical schools in Islam. The earliest document associated with the movement is the pseudoepigraphical text Risala attributed to Hasan al-Basri, which was composed between 75 AH/694 CE and 80/699, though debates about free will in Islam probably predate this text. According to Sunni sources, the Qadariyah were censured by Muhammad himself by being compared to Zoroastrians, who likewise deny predestination.