created beings and their deeds? By Allah, the Pen did not know what to write until Allah set it writing in accordance with His knowledge and taught it what to record of all that would come to pass, before it came to pass.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Allah recorded the decrees for the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth fifty thousand years before He created them.” Did He record this except in accordance with what He knew? What, then, would be the point of His recording this if, as they claim, He had not known it?

He also transmitted, with a chain of narration, the hadith recorded in Sahīh Muslim, from Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Hublī, from ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Amr, who said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: ‘Allah recorded the decrees of all things fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth.’”

He said: The hadiths from