Zayd is your brother, and your brother is Zayd. So it is with His saying, ‘I was his hearing and his sight,’ and His saying, ﴿You did not throw when you threw, but God threw﴾ [al-Anfāl 8:17] when you threw. This is substitution of a thing for a thing.
Within this substitution there is a scent of substituting a part for the whole, as in, ‘I ate the loaf—two thirds of it.’ Among the kinds of substitution none is more appropriate to the divine Presence than substitution through error. Everyone is within this: they suppose they are themselves, but they are not themselves; and they suppose they are not themselves, but they are themselves.
For this reason substitution through error is not found in eloquent speech. Its example is, ‘I saw a man—a lion.’ You intended to say, ‘I saw a lion,’ but erred and said, ‘I saw a man.’ Then you remembered that you had erred and said, ‘A lion,’ substituting the lion for him.
(Decorum in Ascribing Acts)
Decorum requires the knower to ascribe to God everything praiseworthy according to custom and the Revealed Law, and not to ascribe to Him what is blameworthy according to custom and the Revealed Law, unless he gathers them, as in His saying, ﴿Say: Everything is from God﴾ [al-Nisāʾ 4:78]. ‘Everything’ requires generality and encompassing. There is also His saying, ﴿He inspired it with its wickedness and its wariness﴾ [al-Shams 91:8].
Unveiling and proof ascribe everything praiseworthy and blameworthy to Him. Blame relates only to the act, and no act belongs to any but God. The knower is within substitution through error, for his intellect differs from his saying. Of the blameworthy he says, ‘It is not His,’ while in his conviction and heart he says, ‘It is His,’ at the time his tongue says, ‘It is not His.’
One who does not know he has erred holds firmly to what he has said or believed. God is the Preserver, substituting for the keepers, those preserving, and Our eyes. Preservation necessarily requires seeing; seeing does not necessarily require preservation, but may come for preservation.
Every preserver within existence has a preserver,
And within every door are crowding and a throng.
