Belief in Qadar (Divine Decree)

Belief in al-Qadar — divine decree and predestination — is the sixth and final pillar of iman according to the hadith of Jibril recorded in Sahih Muslim, in which the Prophet (peace be upon him) defined faith as believing in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and 'al-qadar, its good and its evil.' Ibn Qudamah treats this pillar with care, aware that it has been misunderstood both by those who deny it and by those who use it as a pretext for abandoning moral responsibility.

The Athari creed on qadar, as laid out in the Lum'ah, rests on four established principles. The first is al-'ilm: Allah's knowledge is complete and eternal. He knows all things before they come into existence — the deeds of every creature, the provision of every soul, the moment of every death. This knowledge is not acquired or affected by events; it is an eternal, perfect attribute. The Quran affirms: 'And with Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except Him' (Surah al-An'am 6:59).

The second principle is al-kitabah: everything that will occur until the Day of Judgment was written by Allah in al-Lawh al-Mahfuz (the Preserved Tablet) fifty thousand years before the creation of the heavens and the earth. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 'Allah wrote the decrees of creation fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth, while His Throne was upon the water' (Muslim). This writing is not a constraint imposed from outside; it is the inscription of Allah's eternal knowledge in a created record.

The third principle is al-mashi'ah: nothing occurs in existence except by Allah's will. What He wills, is; what He does not will, is not. This applies to the obedience of the believer and the disobedience of the sinner alike. Both occur within Allah's comprehensive will, though not both receive His approval (rida'). The Quran states: 'And you do not will except that Allah wills' (Surah al-Insan 76:30).

The fourth principle is al-khalq: Allah is the Creator of all things, including the actions of His servants. Human acts of choice, effort, and intention — all are created by Allah. Yet this does not negate human agency. Ibn Qudamah, following Imam Ahmad, holds that the servant truly acts, truly chooses, and is truly accountable, because he acts with a real, though created, capacity and will. The error of the Jabriyyah was to deny human agency entirely; the error of the Qadariyyah (the 'Magi of this Ummah,' as the Prophet called them) was to remove human action from the scope of divine creation.

Ibn Qudamah is careful to note that the doctrine of qadar must never become a justification for sin. Allah has sent messengers, revealed books, and established clear commands and prohibitions. The servant is responsible for acting on what he knows. The fact that Allah knew in eternity what the servant would choose does not remove the servant's real, experienced capacity for choice in the moment of action. Both realities are true simultaneously, and the Muslim submits to this without demanding a rational resolution that the human intellect is not equipped to provide.

He concludes by citing the well-known saying of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him): 'Qadar is the secret of Allah in His creation. Do not reveal it.' The proper stance of the believer is to affirm it completely, act on the commands of the Shariah fully, and leave the deeper 'how' of its reconciliation with human freedom to Allah.