Rule Forty-Eight: Whenever Allah links His knowledge to events after they occur, what is meant is the kind of knowledge that entails reward or punishment.

It is firmly established in the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and by scholarly consensus that Allah knows everything. His knowledge embraces the higher and lower worlds, the outward and the inward, the manifest and the hidden, the past and the future. He knew what His servants would do before they ever acted.

Yet a number of verses say that He legislated or decreed a matter “so that He might know” something else. The point is that this refers to the knowledge on the basis of which He requites. His prior knowledge of human deeds—before they are carried out—does not itself give rise to recompense, for He only rewards or punishes deeds once they have actually taken place. On this principle, interpret every such verse that comes to your attention, for example:

“O you who believe, Allah will surely test you with something of the game within reach of your hands and spears, so that Allah may know who fears Him in the unseen” (5:94);

“We did not appoint the direction you formerly faced except in order to know who would follow the Messenger from those who would turn back on their heels” (2:143);

“We sent down iron, wherein is great might and benefits for people, so that Allah may know who will support Him and His messengers in the unseen” (57:25);

“Allah will surely make known those who believe, and He will surely make known the hypocrites” (29:11);

“Then We raised them up so that We might know which of the two parties had better calculated the length of their stay” (18:12).

Every verse of this kind is to be understood in light of this principle.