التَّأوِيلُ الإِسمَاعِيلِيُّ لِلقَدَرِ وَالقَضَاء — القَضَاءُ الإِلَهِيُّ وَالتَّقدِير: كَيفَ تُقرَأُ المَفهُومَانِ القُرآنِيُّ وَالكَلَامِيُّ لِلقَضَاءِ [الحُكمُ وَالقَرَارُ الإِلَهِيّ] وَالقَدَرِ [المِيزَانُ وَالقِسطَاسُ الإِلَهِيّ] وَالجَدَلُ الكَلَامِيُّ الكَلَاسِيكِيُّ بَينَ الجَبرِ وَالاختِيَارِ فِي التَّأوِيلِ الإِسمَاعِيلِيِّ
In Ismaili ta'wil, al-Qadar wal-Qada' (القَدَرُ وَالقَضَاء — Divine Measure and Divine Decree; *qadar*: from *q-d-r*: to measure, to proportion, to have power over; qadar = the divine measure/proportion by which everything is created in exact quantity and kind; *qada'*: from *q-d-y*: to decide, to judge, to complete; qada' = the divine decision, the finalized divine will; the sixth article of faith in the Ash'ari tradition is belief in divine decree [al-qadar — that good and evil are both from God]; Quranic bases: [1] 54:49 'We created everything in exact measure [bi-qadar]'; [2] 54:50 'And Our command is but one, like the twinkling of an eye'; [3] 57:22 'No affliction strikes the earth or your souls except it is in a Book before We bring it about'; [4] 3:145 'And no soul can die except by God's permission, at a predetermined time [ajalan maktuba]'; the classical theological debate: [1] the Mu'tazili position [5th-9th c.]: humans have real free will [istitaah / qadar]; God does not create evil; humans create their own acts; God knows but does not predetermine; rational moral accountability requires genuine freedom; [2] the Ash'ari position [9th-11th c.]: God creates all acts including human acts; the human's kasb [acquisition] of the act is the basis of moral accountability; compulsion without acquisition would undermine divine justice; [3] the Maturidi position: similar to Ash'ari but with a stronger role for human will; [4] the extremist Jabri position: total compulsion; humans are like feathers in the wind [condemned by most scholars]; [5] the Mu'tazili Qadariyya: total human freedom; [6] the famous report of 'Ali: 'Ask me about the divine decree and I will tell you — it is a dark ocean; do not enter it'; the five divine decrees: [1] al-qada' al-mubram [fixed decree — what cannot change]; [2] al-qada' al-mu'allaq [conditional decree — what can be altered by prayer and repentance]; Islamic piety maintains both: praying changes things [qada' mu'allaq] while ultimately God's will prevails [qada' mubram]; Ismaili ta'wil of al-qadar wal-qada': [1] the zahir/batin resolution: in Ismaili ta'wil, the qada'-qadar tension maps onto the zahir/batin structure: [a] qada' [divine judgment/necessity] = the zahiri dimension — the external events of the world unfold according to divine measure; [b] qadar [human response to divine measure] = the batin dimension — the human being's capacity to respond to divine measure through walayah; [2] the ta'wil resolution of free will: Ismaili ta'wil bypasses the jabr vs. ikhtiyar debate by locating the human's real freedom in the batin response to divine measure; the zahiri events [illnesses, deaths, successes, failures] are divinely measured; the batin response [whether one accepts walayah, whether one opens to ta'wil] is where human agency resides; [3] qada' as the Imam's necessity: in the created order, the Imam is the being who most perfectly embodies the divine qada' — the Imam's existence and succession is not contingent but necessary; the nass [designation] of each Imam by the previous one mirrors the divine qada'; [4] qadar as the mu'min's measure: each mu'min's capacity for walayah-reception is their qadar — their divine measure of batin-receptivity; not everyone receives the same amount; the Imam's da'wa offers the maximum amount to each; [5] praying changes things in ta'wil: the Ismaili understanding that bay'ah and ta'wil can change one's qadar reflects the understanding that the human's batin response to divine measure is genuine; receiving walayah is not predetermined but responded to through human action) is the Ismaili resolution of Islam's hardest theological question.
The Dark Ocean
‘Ali ibn Abi Talib’s reported response when asked about divine decree — “it is a dark ocean; do not enter it” — captures the difficulty of the question better than most theological treatises. The relation between divine omnipotence and human freedom is genuinely perplexing; the history of Islamic theology is largely the history of attempts to navigate between the Scylla of absolute divine determination (which undermines moral accountability) and the Charybdis of absolute human freedom (which undermines divine sovereignty).
Ismaili ta’wil does not dissolve this difficulty but relocates it. The question is not “does God predetermine all events?” but “where does the human being’s genuine response to divine reality reside?” And the Ismaili answer is: in the batin.
Zahiri Events and Batin Response
The Ismaili ta’wil of predestination works on two levels simultaneously. The zahiri level — what happens in the world: births, deaths, successes, failures, the rise and fall of communities — unfolds according to divine qada’ and qadar. These events are divinely measured; the mu’min accepts this with the equanimity of tawakkul (trust in God).
The batin level is where human agency genuinely operates. Whether one accepts walayah, whether one opens to ta’wil, whether one responds to the Imam’s da’wa or closes against it — these are genuine human choices that the divine measure does not compel. The mu’min’s freedom is not freedom from divine measure but freedom of batin-response to divine measure. This is a different and more precise claim than either Mu’tazili freedom or Ash’ari kasb.
The Imam’s Necessity Within Qadar
In Ismaili cosmological theology, the Imam’s existence and succession is not contingent but necessary — it is part of the divine qada’ in the sense that the universe cannot function without the Imam’s presence. Just as the First Intellect necessarily emanates from the First Principle, the Imam necessarily exists as the summit of created beings. The nass (designation) of each Imam by the previous one mirrors this divine necessity: the Imam is not elected or chosen by consensus but designated by the divine qada’.
See also: Bayah And Walayah, Ismaili Cosmology Hudud Al Din, Ismaili Tawil Of Al Tawfiq, Ismaili Tawil Of Al Mithaq, Tawil Esoteric Interpretation