The scholars state that true faith in qadar (the divine decree) demands affirmation of its four successive levels.

1. First: to believe that Allah—glorified and exalted—is fully aware of everything. The Majestic Book reiterates His all-embracing knowledge. Allah says, “so that you may know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah has encompassed all things in knowledge” (At-Talaq 65:12). He also says, “With Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them but Him. He knows what is on land and in the sea; not a leaf falls without His knowledge, nor a grain in the darkness of the earth, nor anything fresh or dry, but it is [recorded] in a clear Book” (Al-Anʿam 6:59).

2. Second: to believe that Allah has written the measure of every single thing up to the Day of Resurrection—He wrote it fifty thousand years before creating the heavens and the earth. Whatever is to occur is already written and concluded: the pens have dried and the pages have been folded away. What reaches you could never have missed you, and what misses you could never have reached you. Accordingly, when something happens to you, do not say, “Had I done such-and-such, this would not have happened.” That event was already inscribed and had to take place exactly as written; there is no escape from it, whatever you may do. The affair will proceed as decreed and will never change, because it has been fixed in writing.

Someone might object: “Did the Prophet ﷺ not say, ‘Whoever would like his provision to be enlarged and his lifespan extended should maintain his ties of kinship’?”