The wording “He began creation” is comparable to that in the other hadith:

“Allah determined the destinies of created beings fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth.”

Here, “created beings” means the familiar created beings brought into existence after the Throne had been created and was upon the water. Thus, the decree concerning created things refers to the decree concerning the creation of this world, as in the hadith about the Pen:

“When Allah created it, He said, ‘Write.’ It asked, ‘What shall I write?’ He said, ‘Write what will happen until the Day of Resurrection.’”

Likewise, the authentic hadith states:

“Allah determined the destinies of created beings fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth, and His Throne was upon the water.”

And the wording in the other authentic hadith:

“Allah was, and nothing was before Him. His Throne was upon the water. He wrote everything in the Record, then created the heavens and the earth.”

This means that He wrote everything He intended to create of that creation. For the expression “everything” has, in each context, a scope determined by the purpose for which it is used, as in His words:

“He has knowledge of everything”; “He has power over everything”; “Allah is the Creator of everything”; “destroying everything”; “She has been given of everything”; “We opened for them the gates of everything”; and “Of everything We created pairs.”

The messengers also told of the prior existence of His names and attributes, as in His words: “And Allah has always been Almighty, All-Wise”; “All-Hearing, All-Seeing”; “All-Forgiving, Most Merciful”; and similar expressions.

Ibn ‘Abbās said, “He was, and He ever remains so.” He did not restrict His being so to one time rather than another.