namely, a legislative will and a creational will.

The legislative will comprises everything Allah has ordained for His servants and urged them to observe—acts of obedience and worship of every ruling, from obligations to recommendations. All such deeds Allah wills and loves.

The creational will, by contrast, may pertain to matters Allah has not legislated, yet He has decreed them. It is called the “creational will” on the basis of His words: “His command, when He wills a thing, is only that He says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is” (Yā Sīn 82). The indefinite noun “a thing” embraces absolutely everything, whether obedience or disobedience, and its existence comes solely through His saying “Be,” that is, through His will, decree, and predestination.

Once we grasp that this creational will encompasses all things, righteous or sinful, we must return to the doctrine of divine decree and pre-measurement, for the verse “We placed coverings over their hearts so they would not understand it, and deafness in their ears” means that whatever He addressed with “Be” He rendered a predetermined reality that must come to pass. Every affair with Allah is proportioned, and this, too,