In Islam, “predestination” is the usual English language rendering of a belief that Muslims call al-qada wa al-qadr in Arabic. The phrase means “the divine decree and the predestination”; al-qadr derives from a root that means to measure out.

Concept

The phrase reflects a Muslim doctrine that God has measured out the span of every person’s life, their lot of good or ill fortune, and whether they will follow the straight (righteous) path or not[4][5]. When referring to the future, Muslims frequently qualify any predictions of what will come to pass with the phrase Insha’Allah, Arabic for “if God willed [it].” The phrase recognises that human knowledge of the future is limited, and that all that may or may not come to pass is under the control of God.

Qadar is one of the aspects of aqidah. Muslims believe that the divine destiny is when God wrote down in the Preserved Tablet (“al-Lawhu ‘l-Mahfuz”) all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written.

According to this belief, a person’s action is not caused by what is written in the Preserved Tablet but, rather, the action is written in the Preserved Tablet because God knows what the person’s nature will cause them to do.

Another perspective asserts that God is omniscient and therefore has foreknowledge of all possible futures. With divine power, God then also deems which futures will be allowed, and man’s choice is between those possibilities approved by God.