This, then, refers to the writing of all that will take place in this world up to the Day of Resurrection, not to what will occur after that.

The proofs that refute their opinion are many. Once its falsity is clear, only the two views held by Muslims remain. The view we deem sound is that the Throne was created first, for this is established in the rigorously authentic report recorded by Muslim in his Ṣaḥīḥ:

“Allah ordained the measures of the creatures fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth, while His Throne was upon the water.”

This shows that He carried out the ordainment while His Throne rested upon the water; therefore the Throne was already in existence, as a created entity, at the moment of decree and did not come into being afterward.

The same is indicated by the sound ḥadīth related by al-Bukhārī:

“There was Allah and nothing before Him; His Throne was upon the water, and He wrote in the Record everything,”

and in another wording: “Then He wrote in the Record everything.”

This likewise proves that the writing in the Record took place while the Throne was upon the water.

As for the ḥadīth that states, “The first thing Allah created was the Pen, and He commanded it, ‘Write whatever shall be until the Day of Resurrection,’” it clarifies the creation of the universe that He fashioned in six days: the decree regarding this universe preceded its creation, and the very first of the causes of this universe that He brought into being was the Pen, for decreeing a creature necessarily precedes bringing that creature into existence.

That report mentions only that the Pen wrote what will occur until the Day of Resurrection; thus, the decree it recorded pertains to the creation for whose sake He created the Pen beforehand, and it does not encompass the decree of every single creature.