Qadr — The Divine Decree

Qadr (قدر) means measure or decree — Allah’s complete foreordaining of everything that happens, known and willed by Him before it comes to be. Belief in Qadr is the sixth and final article of faith named in the Hadith of Jibril, alongside belief in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day.

Scholars have traditionally explained belief in Qadr as resting on four connected levels. Al-‘Ilm — Allah’s complete knowledge of everything that will happen, before it happens. Al-Kitabah — Allah’s writing of everything that will happen, traditionally associated with what is described as the Preserved Tablet (al-Lawh al-Mahfuz). Al-Mashi’ah — Allah’s will, meaning that nothing occurs in creation except that He has willed it to occur. Al-Khalq — Allah’s creation of all things, including human actions themselves, since nothing exists or happens outside of His creating it.

A question raised early in Islamic theology, and still carefully taught today, is how belief in Qadr relates to human responsibility. Belief in Qadr does not mean a person has no real choice or is not accountable for their actions — the Qur’an repeatedly addresses people as responsible moral agents who will be judged for what they choose to do. Historically, two opposite errors were identified and rejected by mainstream Sunni scholarship: one extreme (associated with a group called the Jabriyyah) treated people as having no real choice at all, reducing human action to pure compulsion; the other extreme (associated with a group called the Qadariyyah) denied that Allah’s prior knowledge and decree extend to human actions. The mainstream position taught by Ahl al-Sunnah holds both together: Allah knows, wills and creates all that occurs, while people genuinely choose their actions and are answerable for them.

Belief in Qadr is often described as bringing contentment rather than fatalism — trusting that what reaches a person could not have missed them, and what misses them could not have reached them, while still striving, working and making choices as one is instructed to do.