ikhtiyār
The Māturīdī name for the creature’s own choosing — a particular, occurrent act of will (irāda juzʾiyya) by which the servant opts for one alternative. God creates the act chosen; the choosing itself is what makes the act obedience or sin, and so what reward and punishment track.
Arabic ikhtiyār, “choosing”, from kh-y-r, “to choose”.
Ikhtiyār is the Māturīdī name for the creature's own choosing — a particular will (irāda juzʾiyya), an occurrent act rather than a standing capacity. When the servant chooses, God creates the chosen act; the choosing is what makes the act obedience or sin, and so what reward and punishment track.
The division of labour is precise in the school: God creates the act's existence and physical detail; the human arranges, chooses, acquires, and bears the act's moral value. Al-Māturīdī's own example: God creates the utterance, but is not thereby the speaker. This is concurrentism with the moral weight carried by the creature's side, which is why the corpus compares it directly with Ashʿarī kasb and Orthodox synergy rather than dismissing it as determinism.
The comparative verdict so far is symmetric cost on decree-plus-responsibility: each of the three accounts pays something to hold divine sovereignty and human responsibility together, and none has been shown to pay nothing.
The mistaken everyday reading is "a face-saving word for fatalism." The school's own texts stake reward and punishment on the distinction, which fatalism cannot do.