Qada and Qadar

The Sixth Pillar of Iman

The six pillars of Islamic faith (arkan al-iman) — belief in Allah, the angels, the scriptures, the prophets, the Last Day, and al-qadar (divine decree) — include this doctrine as the final and perhaps most philosophically complex of the six. The Prophet (SAW) is reported to have said in the famous Hadith Jibrail: “Iman is that you believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Last Day, and the decree (al-qadar) — both its good and its evil.”

Al-qadar here includes both the good that befalls the believer and the evil. The formula “both its good and its evil” is itself the key teaching: the mumin doesn’t believe in divine decree only for good things and attribute evil to chaos or to a separate negative power. All of existence — including what humans experience as good fortune and bad — occurs within divine wisdom and divine will.

The Quranic Evidence

Divine Knowledge is Total

“And with Him are the keys of the unseen — none knows them except Him. And He knows what is on the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. And no grain is there within the darknesses of the earth and no moist or dry [thing] but that it is [written] in a clear record.” (6:59)

“Verily, We have created everything by qadar.” (54:49)

“And there is nothing but that with Us are its depositories, and We do not send it down except in a known measure.” (15:21)

These verses establish divine ‘ilm (knowledge) and divine qadar (measure) as total and comprehensive: nothing exists outside divine knowledge, and everything that exists does so in a specific measure determined by divine wisdom.

Human Responsibility is Real

“And that the human being will not have except what they strive for.” (53:39)

“Indeed, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (13:11)

“Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.” (99:7-8)

These verses affirm that human beings are genuinely responsible for their actions, that their choices have real consequences, and that divine change operates in response to human change. If humans had no real choice, the accountability of the Last Day would be meaningless.

The Quran Holds Both

“And Allah has created you and whatever you do.” (37:96)

This verse, debated extensively in Islamic theology, affirms that Allah created both the human being and their actions — yet the grammatical construction (ma ta’malun) refers to the things they make/do. The verse neither eliminates divine causality (God created what you do) nor eliminates human agency (it is what you do).

The Classical Theological Debate

Islamic theology’s three major schools took different positions on the balance between divine will and human freedom:

The Ash’ari position (dominant in Sunni theology): Human beings have no genuine causal power of their own — all causality belongs to Allah alone. Humans have kasb (acquisition) — they acquire actions that Allah creates through them. The apparent human choice is real in the human experience but the actual causing is divine. This preserves divine omnipotence but at the cost of making human freedom philosophically difficult to maintain.

The Mutazilite position (the “rationalist” theological school of early Islam): Human beings have genuine creative power over their own actions (qudra mustaqilla — independent power). Allah does not create human sins — to hold otherwise would make divine justice incoherent (why punish what Allah caused?). This preserves human responsibility and divine justice but creates tension with divine omnipotence.

The Maturidi position (another major Sunni school): A middle position acknowledging both divine creation of all things and genuine human agency through iradat juz’iyya (partial will).

The Ismaili-Tayyibi Position

The Ismaili theological tradition, following the Fatimid period scholars and the teachings of the Imams, takes a position that the Quran’s balance is not a contradiction to be resolved but a truth to be inhabited:

Divine knowledge is not causality: Allah’s knowing what a person will do does not cause them to do it. A teacher who knows which students will pass before the exam is not the cause of their passing or failing — the students’ preparation and performance causes the result; the teacher’s foreknowledge is separate from that causality. Similarly, divine ‘ilm of what will happen does not collapse human freedom; it is a divine capacity that transcends time without eliminating time’s real causality.

The divine mashia (will) operates at the level of existence, not action: Allah wills the existence of the human being with free choice. Within that existence, the human being makes genuine choices. The divine will is the meta-level determination of the framework; human will is the real causality within that framework.

Human ikhtiyar (choice) is the basis of taklif (religious responsibility): The entire structure of prophetic guidance — the sharia, the batin, the walayah — presupposes that human beings can choose to follow or to reject it. A religion that posits divine guidance but denies human capacity to genuinely follow or reject that guidance is internally incoherent. The Dawat teaches: the mumin chooses walayah; the Imam does not override human will to create a believer.

The Four Degrees of Qadar

Classical Islamic scholarship organized the doctrine of qadar into four components (maratib al-qadar):

‘Ilm (Knowledge): Allah’s total and eternal knowledge of everything that will occur — past, present, and future — in all possible and actual creation.
Kitaba (Writing/Recording): The divine recording of what will occur — the Lawh Mahfuz (Preserved Tablet) in which everything is written. “And everything small and large is inscribed.” (54:53)
Iradat (Will): Nothing happens without divine will permitting it. The divine will is permissive of what occurs — even human sin occurs within a universe that Allah wills to exist, including the human beings with their capacity for sin.
Khalq (Creation): Allah is the ultimate Creator of all that exists — including human beings with their capacities, their environments, and the conditions in which their choices occur.

These four together establish the doctrine without collapsing human agency: Allah knows (fully), has recorded (comprehensively), wills to permit (sovereignly), and creates (ultimately) — but within this framework, the human being with genuine choice makes real decisions for which they are genuinely accountable.

Practical Implications: Living with Qadar

The Islamic understanding of qadar has profound practical implications:

Sabr in difficulty: When bad things happen, the mumin can say “Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un” (2:156) — we are from Allah and to Him we return — acknowledging that the difficulty is within divine wisdom, not random. This is not fatalism (passive acceptance of anything) but sabr (active patience) — engaging with the situation while maintaining trust in divine wisdom. See also: Sabr Patience

Tawakkul (Trust) in uncertainty: Planning and effort are explicitly endorsed by Islamic teaching — the Prophet (SAW) said: “Tie your camel and then put your trust in Allah.” Qadar does not eliminate human planning but removes the anxiety of thinking the outcome depends entirely on one’s own capability.

Freedom from the “if only” trap: The Prophet (SAW) said: “The strong believer is better and more loved by Allah than the weak believer. Strive for what benefits you, seek help from Allah, and do not be helpless. If something befalls you, do not say ‘If only I had done such-and-such,’ but say instead: ‘Allah decreed and what He willed He did’ — because ‘if only’ opens the door to Satan’s work.” (Muslim)

Gratitude for good: When good things come, the mumin recognizes them as divine gifts — ni’mah from Allah — not the result of personal superiority. This prevents the arrogance that prosperity can generate (the sin of the man with two gardens in Surah al-Kahf).

Non-blame for others: Understanding that human beings operate within constraints of genetics, environment, and divine decree produces compassion for others’ failings and removes the moral superiority that easily accompanies judgment.

The Ismaili Ta’wil of Qadar

The zahir of qadar is the theological doctrine: divine knowledge, the Preserved Tablet, divine will, divine creation — all encompassing everything that happens.

The batin of qadar is the teaching about levels of causality. The Imam’s ‘ilm operates at the level of divine knowledge — the Imam knows what is appropriate for each soul at each moment, not through divination but through the ‘ilm ladunni that flows from the prophetic inheritance. The mumin who follows the Imam’s guidance is aligning their choices with this deeper level of knowledge — not eliminating their choice but choosing in the light of the best possible knowledge of what their choices mean.

The Lawh Mahfuz in the Ismaili ta’wil is the ‘ilm itself — the comprehensive record that the Imam carries and dispenses to each soul according to what they can receive. The soul that receives this ‘ilm is receiving a portion of what was written before time — the divine knowledge being made available through the medium of the Imam’s walayah.

The human being who chooses walayah is not predestined to do so in the sense that they could not have chosen otherwise. But they are, in making that choice, fulfilling the potential that was placed in them in the primordial covenant: “Am I not your Lord?” — “Bala” (7:172). The choice is real; the capacity for the choice was divinely given; the fulfillment of the covenant is both the human’s free act and the divine plan’s completion.

Qada and Qadar — Divine Decree and Human Choice