My contribution to this panel deals with one of my main lines of research: Ašʿarism during the Almoravid period. I arrived at this topic somewhat involuntarily, from the study of the legal sources relevant to that period. These sources, contrary to what might be expected, are a veritable mine of information for observing the evolution of the discipline in its broader political, social, and cultural context. The idea that the Almoravids opposed rational Islamic theology must be definitively banished, although as much as some of us have tried to show it, the stereotype seems to have much more force than the evidence of verifiable facts. Nevertheless, the need to revise the image of religious intolerance and of cultural narrow-mindedness refractory to rational speculation and intellectual sophistication with which the Almoravids have gone down in history is slowly though steadily gaining ground among al-Andalus specialists. The Almoravid period is one in which the study of rational theology was not only tolerated but promoted among the religious scholars by the ruling dynasty. The scholars, in turn, strived to disseminate among the common Muslims a moderate integration of rational arguments in matters of belief. On previous occasions, I have shown how the adoption and dissemination of Ašʿarism under the Almoravids sparked debates on theological anthropomorphism, the status of intellectual knowledge in the definition of faith, and the relationship between faith, knowledge, and action. On this occasion, I will focus on the question of predestination and free will, a question that leads me to rethink the presence in al-Andalus, physical or symbolic, of doctrines associated with Muʿtazilism, the theological trend against which Ašʿarism claimed to stand as a "golden middle ground".