Qadar — Rawzat

The Four Levels of Belief in Qadar

The classical Islamic scholars summarized the required belief in qadar in four levels (maratib al-qadar):

1. Al-‘Ilm (Divine Knowledge)

Allah knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen — past, present, and future — in detail, including every act every human being will choose. This knowledge is eternal and complete.

“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)

2. Al-Kitaba (Written Record)

All that Allah knows has been written in the Lawh al-Mahfuz (the Preserved Tablet): “We did not neglect anything in the Register.” (6:38) — The Prophet (SAW): “The first thing Allah created was the Pen. He commanded it to write, and it wrote everything that would occur until the Day of Resurrection.” (Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi)

3. Al-Mashi’a (Divine Will)

Nothing occurs in existence except by the will of Allah: “And you do not will except that Allah wills — indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.” (76:30) — Even the movement of a leaf, the falling of a star, and the choice of a human being occur within Allah’s encompassing will.

4. Al-Khalq (Divine Creation)

Allah is the creator of all things, including human actions: “Allah created you and what you do.” (37:96) — The human being’s capacity to choose is itself a created reality given by Allah.

The Theological Schools

The Jabriyya (Pure Compulsion): Humans have no real agency — they are compelled in every action, like a feather in the wind. This position effectively eliminates moral responsibility and contradicts the Quranic emphasis on human choice and accountability.

The Mu’tazila (Human Agency): Human beings create their own acts, entirely independent of divine determination. Allah’s knowledge is a kind of foreknowledge that follows what will happen rather than determining it. This preserves human accountability but seems to limit divine sovereignty and omnipotence.

The Ash’ari Middle Path — Kasb (Acquisition): Allah creates the act; the human being acquires it through their intention and choice. The act comes from Allah’s creation but is attributed to the human in the sense that it flows through their will. This preserves both divine omnipotence and human accountability — though it has been criticized for being logically unstable.

The Maturidi Position — Irrada Juz’iyya (Partial Will): Slightly more room for genuine human agency than the Ash’ari position: Allah created human beings with a genuine capacity (qudra) for choice, and their choice is real — though it occurs within the overarching divine decree. The human being genuinely wills and chooses; Allah knew and decreed this choice without compelling it.

The Practical Guidance — Living with Qadar

The Prophet (SAW) gave the key practical principle:

“Strive for what benefits you, seek the help of Allah, and do not be incapacitated. If something befalls you, do not say: ‘If only I had done such-and-such, such-and-such would have happened.’ Instead say: ‘Allah decreed and what He willed He did’ — for ‘if only’ opens the door to the work of Shaytan.” (Muslim)

This hadith resolves the practical confusion about qadar:

Before the event: Act as though everything depends on your effort (because it does in terms of your obligation)
After the event: Accept what happened as decreed (because regret about what cannot be changed is spiritually destructive)

The two orientations together — full agency before, full acceptance after — is the Islamic balance.

The Ismaili Philosophical Approach

In Ismaili theology (particularly the Fatimid philosophical tradition of al-Kirmani and Nasir Khusraw), the tension between divine determination and human choice is addressed through the cosmological framework:

The Universal Intellect (‘Aql al-Kull) and Universal Soul (Nafs al-Kull) operate in a hierarchical emanation from the divine command
The human soul is a particular instantiation of the Universal Soul
Human freedom consists in the soul’s capacity to align itself with the Universal Intellect (through ta’wil and the guidance of the Imam) or to remain in the lower material plane
“Decree” (qadar) in this framework is the divine order of the cosmos; “choice” is the soul’s orientation within that order

The Ismaili approach is less juridical (what are the conditions of moral responsibility?) and more cosmological (how does the soul’s journey fit within the divine structure of reality?).

Qadar — Divine Decree and Human Free Will: The Four Levels of Belief and the Theological Debate