nothing occurs without His will, and nothing can exist within His dominion that He, exalted is He, does not will. “Indeed, Allah does whatever He wills” (al-Hajj 14); “Thus Allah does whatever He wishes” (Āl ‘Imrān 40). Hence everything that unfolds in this universe—life and death, wealth and poverty, faith and disbelief—He has willed and wanted. He wills good and He wills evil; He wills belief and He wills unbelief. Everything falls under His volition: whatever He wills comes to be, and whatever He does not will does not come to be.
- The fourth degree is the degree of creation and bringing-into-existence: whatever He wills and chooses, He brings forth and creates. “Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the Disposer of all affairs” (az-Zumar 62). “Indeed, to Him belong the creation and the command” (al-Aʿrāf 54). “No calamity befalls the earth nor your own souls but it is inscribed in a Record before We bring it into being” (al-Ḥadīd 22).
The proofs for His knowledge are innumerable. Among the attributes with which Allah has described Himself is omniscience: He knows the exact number of those who will enter Paradise and those who will enter Hell; this is contained within His eternal knowledge. Whatever Allah, exalted is He, has decreed can never be increased or diminished. Thus He knows the people of Paradise and the people of Hell, and He knows everything they will do. We believe in all of this.