As for His words, exalted is He:

“We appointed the direction of prayer you formerly faced only so that We might know who follows the Messenger and who turns back on his heels,”

and His words:

“So that We might know which of the two groups more accurately reckoned the length of their stay,”

and similar passages, these refer to knowledge of its object after that object comes into existence. This is the knowledge upon which praise and blame, reward and punishment depend. The former kind is knowledge that something will occur. That knowledge alone entails neither praise nor blame, neither reward nor punishment, for these follow only after the deeds have actually occurred.

It is reported that Ibn ‘Abbās explained this as meaning: “So that We might see.” Likewise, the Quran commentators said: “So that We might know it as actually existing, after having known that it would come to exist.”

Speculative thinkers hold two well-known positions concerning what newly arises here. Some say: “What newly arises is merely a relation and connection between knowledge and its object, and this relation has no positive existence.” Others say: “Rather, what newly arises is knowledge of the thing’s occurrence and existence, and this knowledge differs from knowing that it will occur.”

The same applies to His words:

“And say, ‘Act, for Allah will see your deeds, as will His Messenger and the believers.’”

Here He states that seeing will newly occur. Some have therefore said that this is a relation without positive existence; others have said that what newly arises has positive existence. These two positions, those who have advocated each, and the arguments of both sides have been discussed at length elsewhere.

The great majority of the early Muslims and the leading authorities of the Sunnah and hadith hold that what newly arises has positive existence, as the revealed text indicates. Denying this was one of the reasons Ahmad ibn Hanbal shunned al-Hārith al-Muhāsibī, for he held