Praise be to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. To proceed:
Belief in divine decree and predestination is one of the six pillars of faith, and a servant’s faith is not complete without it. Its essence is to firmly believe that everything that occurs in the universe happens through Allah’s knowledge, decree, will, and creation, and that Allah, the Most High, is Wise in whatever He decrees, and nothing lies outside His dominion.
Belief in divine decree is not sound unless a Muslim believes in its four levels:
Knowledge: Believing that Allah, the Most High, has known everything from eternity. Nothing in the heavens or on earth is hidden from Him. He knows what was, what will be, and what His servants will do.
Writing: Believing that Allah wrote the decrees of all creation in the Preserved Tablet fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and the earth, as Allah, the Most High, said:
﴿Do you not know that Allah knows what is in the heaven and the earth? Indeed, that is in a Record﴾ [Al-Hajj: 70].
Will and Divine Willing: Believing that whatever Allah wills occurs and whatever He does not will does not occur, and that everything that happens in the universe happens by His will, Glorified be He. Allah, the Most High, said:
﴿And you do not will unless Allah, the Lord of the worlds, wills﴾ [At-Takwir: 29].
Creation: Believing that Allah is the Creator of everything, including the actions, abilities, and wills of His servants. Allah, the Most High, said:
﴿Allah is the Creator of all things﴾ [Az-Zumar: 62].
Belief in divine decree does not mean that the servant is compelled in his actions. Rather, he has will, ability, and choice through which his actions take place. Allah, the Most High, said:
﴿For whoever among you wills to follow the straight path﴾ [At-Takwir: 28].
However, the servant’s will and ability are not independent of Allah’s will. He, Glorified be He, said:
﴿And you do not will unless Allah wills﴾ [At-Takwir: 29].
Allah is the One who created the servant, his ability, and his will. The servant acts by his own choice, and therefore he is held accountable for his actions.
In the Arabic language, qada’ means perfecting and completing a matter, while qadar means determining or measuring it. Some scholars distinguished between the two, but the closer view is that qada’ and qadar are close in meaning, and there is no clear evidence requiring a distinction between them, although the term qadar occurs more frequently in the religious texts.
Divine decree is one of Allah’s secrets concerning His creation. Whatever Allah and His Messenger have informed us of, we believe and affirm; whatever remains hidden from us, we submit it to Allah and believe in the perfection of His knowledge, wisdom, and justice.
A person may not make his limited intellect the judge over Allah’s actions and decree, nor object to His wisdom. Allah, the Most High, does not do anything without purpose. He possesses profound wisdom in everything He decrees, even if some of that wisdom is hidden from us.
Likewise, belief in divine decree must not become a reason for abandoning action or taking the proper means, nor for using divine decree as an excuse for sins. Rather, a Muslim acts according to what Allah has commanded, seeks His help, and is content with what He has decreed after it occurs.
In summary, the belief of Ahl as-Sunnah is: to believe in Allah’s prior knowledge, His writing of everything, the fulfillment of His will, and His creation of everything, while affirming the servant’s will, ability, and choice without allowing them to go beyond Allah’s will and power, and to submit to Allah’s wisdom and justice concerning what we know and what we do not know.
And Allah knows best.