(38–39) “We certainly sent messengers before you and gave them wives and offspring. It was never for any messenger to bring a sign except by Allah’s permission. For every appointed term there is a decree. * Allah erases whatever He wills and confirms whatever He wills, and with Him is the Master Record.”
That is, you are not the first messenger ever sent to mankind, such that they should find your mission extraordinary. “We certainly sent messengers before you and gave them wives and offspring.” Your enemies therefore have no grounds to fault you for having wives and offspring, for your fellow messengers had them as well. Why, then, do they disparage you for this when they know that the messengers before you were likewise—unless it is merely because of their corrupt aims and desires? If they demand that you produce a sign of their own choosing, none of the matter is up to you.
“It was never for any messenger to bring a sign except by Allah’s permission.” Allah permits it only at the time He has appointed and decreed. “For every appointed term there is a decree” that can be neither brought forward nor delayed. Thus, their demands to hasten the signs or the punishment do not require Allah to bring forward what He has decreed should be delayed, although He, exalted is He, does whatever He wills.
“Allah erases whatever He wills” of the decrees “and confirms whatever He wills.” This erasure and alteration apply to matters other than what His foreknowledge has already encompassed and His Pen has recorded. That admits of neither alteration nor change, for it is impossible for Allah ⦗420⦘ to have any deficiency or flaw in His knowledge. He therefore said, “and with Him is the Master Record”—namely, the Preserved Tablet, to which all other things are referred. It is their foundation, while they are its derivatives and branches.
Alteration and change thus occur in the derivatives and branches, such as the deeds of each day and night recorded by the angels. Allah establishes causes for their confirmation and causes for their erasure, but these causes never go beyond what is inscribed in the Preserved Tablet. Thus, Allah has made righteousness, maintaining family ties, and kindness causes of long life and abundant provision. He has likewise made sins a cause of the loss of blessing in one’s provision and lifespan. He has made the means of deliverance from perils and dangers a cause of safety, while exposing oneself to them is a cause of destruction. It is He who governs all affairs according to His power and will, and nothing He governs ever conflicts with what He has already known and recorded in the Preserved Tablet.