brought it to mind and imagined it. It has thus acquired a kind of existence, namely its form in my imagination. Do not let it rule over me through the appearance of its entity.” This is the meaning of “Turn it away from me.”
He then says, “And turn me away from it,” meaning, “Come between me and it, and place between us the veil between existence and nonexistence, so that I neither bring it to mind nor have it present to me in entity or imagination.”
He says, “I seek Your enabling through Your power,” because power is the attribute of bringing into existence. Its scope of relation is narrower than knowledge’s. He turns things away through knowledge and brings them into existence through power, while He does not turn them away through power. He therefore put knowledge before power, since his good choice may lie in leaving what he had sought to do and bring into existence.
It is as though he says, “If there is good for me in obtaining what I have sought to obtain, I seek Your enabling through Your power,” meaning, “Enable me to obtain it.”
(Power and the Ascription of the Act)
If he is among those who ascribe the act to the servant, such as a Muʿtazilī, the ascription in “through Your power” means the power You create in Your servants.
If he is among those who do not ascribe the act to the servant, “through Your power” means the Real’s power, which is His attribute, ascribed to Him as an attribute, apart from the category of creation.
His saying “For You are able and I am not” can come from either group. It means, “You are able to create in me the power to do it if You know there is good for me in it.”
He may intend to state the reality of the denial of power to the servant, saying, “You are able to bring it into existence
