The Similarities between the Views of Shaykh Mufid and the Mu’tazilites of Baghdad on the Nature of the God’s Will

Sheikh Mufid has a special and prominent position among the Imamiyyah theologians and his analysis on the theological teachings of Islam undoubtedly play an important role in the intellectual history of Imamiyah. God's will and its nature are among the teachings that Sheikh Mufid has written an independent treatise on it, and then has also been analyzed by some of his students, such as Karajaki. Given the sheikh's theological method and based on some narrations, although Sheikh, like the other theologians, considers God's will to be a created matter, he distinguishes between the will of God and the will of man, and ontologically considers the will to be the objective and the external matter. Semantically, regarding the attribute of the will, Sheikh Mufid believes: It is not possible to attribute the will to God, and only through listening can God be considered the Desirous. Therefore, just in virtual mode, the usage of this attribute to God is valid. Of course, this explanation was previously provided by some Baghdadi Mu'tazilites, such as Balkhi Ka'bi. Sheikh Mufid may have favored the Mu'tazilites’ approach because of its alignment with the narrations of Imamiyyah.