Does Everything Being Written in the Preserved Tablet Mean That God Willed It All?

Knowing is not the same as willing. Willing is the first veil of knowledge, its initial manifestation; knowledge in its true sense is what is revealed at the stage of divine ratification.

“Will, intention, decree, judgment and ratification” all have a temporal and spatial framework. Knowledge, however, has no such framework. Divine knowledge encompasses will, intention, decree, judgment and ratification. Knowledge admits of neither quantity nor quality; it has no whatness, whyness or existence in the ordinary sense. It transcends them all, and so the limitations of the mind cannot grasp divine knowledge.

Al-Ḥadīd 57:22 ما أَصابَ مِنْ مُصيبَةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَ لا في‏ أَنْفُسِكُمْ إِلاَّ في‏ كِتابٍ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ نَبْرَأَها إِنَّ ذلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسيرٌ

No calamity befalls the earth or yourselves without its having been recorded in a Book before We bring it into being. That is easy for God.

The root ب ر ء originally means to create from nothing, to bring something into existence without precedent, and to cut or separate one thing from another. The words “Bāriʾ” (Creator) and “barāʾ” (disavowal) derive from this same root.

The form «نَبْرَأ» is a present-tense verb in the first-person plural, from Form IV. The use of the plural form “We,” when referring to God’s Most Sacred Essence, signifies the majesty of the divine act.

Creation may be understood as having different levels and degrees. The stage of barʾ—at which the Lord Most High’s creative power becomes manifest—may be seen as creation’s manifestation after the Preserved Tablet.

Al-Ḥadīd 57:22 ما أَصابَ مِنْ مُصيبَةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَ لا في‏ أَنْفُسِكُمْ إِلاَّ في‏ كِتابٍ مِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ نَبْرَأَها إِنَّ ذلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسيرٌ

No unwelcome calamity befalls the earth or yourselves without its having been recorded in the Preserved Tablet before We created the earth. That is easy for God.