The Second Principle: Concerning Divine Decree and Revealed Law
Faith in the Decree and its Rank in the Religion

The Second Principle: Divine Decree and Law¹

• The decree (qadar) is Allah’s timeless and everlasting determination of all that has been and all that will ever be.

• Belief in the decree is one of the six pillars of faith that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set forth to Gabriel when he asked about faith. He answered: “That you believe in Allah, His angels, His scriptures, His messengers, the Last Day, and that you believe in the decree—its good and its evil.”

• Belief in both the decree and the law completes one’s affirmation of Allah’s lordship.

• Faith in the decree comprises four levels:

Level One: To believe that Allah, by His eternal and everlasting knowledge, knows everything that has occurred and will occur—great and small, outward and inward—whether it is of His own acts or the acts of His creatures.

Level Two: To believe that Allah has written, in the Preserved Tablet, the measure of every single thing until the Hour is established; nothing takes place except that it is written and decreed before it exists.

The proof for these two levels appears in Allah’s Book and in the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ:

– As for the Book, among its evidence is His saying: “Do you not know that Allah knows whatever is in the heavens….”