only if the impossible were of that which is allotted to Power. But Power has not been connected with that, seeing that nothing is allotted to it except the possible. And Will has two connections, one eternally potential, and it is its potentiality to specify from all eternity. So, in the case of the tall or the short Zayd, it is possible that he might be otherwise than what he is, so far as relationship to the potentiality of Will is concerned. For Will is potential that Zayd should be a Sultan or a scavenger, so far as the potential connection is concerned. And Will has also an eternal accomplished connection, and it is the specifying by God of a thing with a quality which it possesses. So God specified Zayd from all eternity by His Will with the knowledge that he possesses. And his being specified with knowledge, for example, is eternal and is called an eternal accomplished connection. And the potentiality of Will to specify him with knowledge, etc., in relationship to the essence of Will, cutting off all consideration of actual specifying, is called an eternal potential connection. And some say that Will has also a temporal, accomplished connection. It is, for example, the specifying of Zayd with tallness, when he is actually brought into existence. According to this view, Will has three connections; but the truth is that this third is not a connection but is the making manifest of the eternal, accomplished connection. And the connection of Power and Will is common to every possible thing to the extent that the affections of the mind (_khatarat_) which arise in the mind of an individual are specified by the Will of God and created by His Power as the Shaykh al-Malawi [Ahmad al-Malawi, d. 1181] has said in some of his books. But know that the attributing of specifying to Will and of bringing out into existence to Power is only metaphorical; for the true specifier is God by His Will and the true producer and bringer-into-existence is God by His Power. Then, in the case of the saying of the common people that Power does such and such to so and so, if it is meant that the doing belongs to Power actually, or to it and to the essence of God, that is unbelief (_kufr_). Rather, the doing belongs to the essence of God by His Power.