Does Allah's Knowledge Remove Your Free Will?
Understanding Divine Decree: The Preserved Tablet and the Four Stages of Qadr
Summary
This lecture discusses Islamic theology regarding divine decree (Qadr) and creation, focusing on the first stage of decree called Al-Kitaba (the writing). The speaker explains the concept of the Preserved Tablet (Al-Lawh Al-Mahfuz), describing how Allah commanded the Pen to write all that would occur until the Day of Judgment, 50,000 years before creation. The lecture addresses the theological reconciliation between divine foreknowledge and human free will, emphasizing that Allah's writing of all events does not constitute force or compulsion since humans did not yet exist. The speaker also mentions the four stages of decree and discusses eight eternal creations of Allah that have a beginning but no end, including the Pen, the Preserved Tablet, Paradise, Hellfire, the human soul, and Allah's Throne.
Note: This transcript was generated using YouTube's automatic captioning, with AI-assisted cleanup for readability. It may contain inaccuracies due to background noise, audio quality, or limitations of the transcription software — particularly during Arabic recitation. Listener discretion is advised; please refer to the original video for precise wording.
Build. This reference to that comes decreed by. It has been that somehow in free will. There is no in Allah has huh was sent to Bahrain was sent to Al Bahin. It is and excuse me and Abu Dh were the two that were sent to Yemen. Now when they were sent to Yemen they were sent to Yemen. They went there and they called people to Islam. And when they called people to Islam during the year of the the year of the wu, the year of the caravans, the caravans that were coming to the prophet sallall.aii wasallam in Medina to pledge allegiance to become Muslim to bring their zaka to meet the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam from all of these far away lands that had heard of Islam and become Muslim. What year was that? Anyone know any historians amongst us? The ninth year after Hijra. Very good. We have a homegrown historian here. Mashallah. The ninth year after hij is a group came from Yemen and they said they said oh messenger of Allah we came to ask you about the beginning of this creation. What is the first thing that Allah created of this creation? Notice the wording meaning human beings, jin, this earth, the angels as we know them. Were their creations before? Of course, who knows how many creations? But Allah always was and always is and always will be al the very prolific creator. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam tells us of the first creation he said.
[Silence]
He said the first thing that Allah created was the pen. And he said to it, "Write and the pen responded,"What shall I write?" Allah said, "Write all that is to be until the day of judgment." This writing, what that pen wrote into that tablet, this tablet or this book is referred to in the Quran is what? the preserved tablet. It's also referred at referred to as the essence the origin of all decree is the preserved tablets. Okay. Where did the pen get this information from that it wrote? It got it from the knowledge of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It had not yet come into existence. You and me and my name and how many breaths I take and how many cells in my body and how many hairs on your head and how many beats of your heart and what you eat and what you don't and every bug that you step on and everything was written in the preserve tablet. The prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam said and that was 50,000 years before the first creation. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wrote this. Does that mean that he forced it? No. Because how is it that it would be a forced upon us when we didn't even exist yet? This was 50,000 years before the creation. before the first creation, before Gibl, before Adam, right? And so this was 50,000 years before the creation. Allah wrote in the preserved tablet, all that is to be, where did that come from? From his knowledge, subhanahu waala. So he knows, he knew all that was to be. And he wrote that in the preserve tablet and it's referred to as the preserve tablet because it is one of eight creations of Allah that has a beginning and has no end. The preserved tablet, it wasn't just Allah wrote in it 50,000 years before the first creation and then stopped writing. No, no, no. It continues to write and it will continue to write. In Bkari Muslim, the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam said that when he arrived at the seventh heaven on the night of and he passed and there is where Jirel stopped and said I do not have permission to proceed past this point. So our prophet sallallah.aii Wasam went on without he said. And so I was then brought so near to Allah that I could hear the pens of decree writing. That's how close a place that no other prophet or messenger had ever arrived at yet. Not even Jirel himself. And so this first stage of decree, this is referred to as we said there are four levels of decree. Everything that comes into existence goes through these four stages. The first stage is what? Alaba. The first stage is the writing. It was written. Nothing that was not written. Anything that was exempted from that preserved tablet will never come into existence. The only thing that will come into existence is what is in that preserved tablet. And we said it's called the preserved tablet because it is preserved. It has a beginning and it has no end. This is one of eight things, eight creations of Allah that has a beginning, has no end. I've already given you one, the preserved tablet. What do you think if we mention the other seven? What are the other seven creations of Allah that have a beginning but they have no end? They will be forever.
[Arabic recitation]
And Jenna and the soul. Yes, correct. The soul, the human soul. What else? Those are three. The hellfire. Correct. That is eternal. There's four. We got half. We need four more. You know them all. Everyone here probably knows all of them.
[Arabic recitation]
Very good. What's the tablet without the pen? Come on, guys. They go together. peanut butter and jelly. Like ketchup and mustard. the ary good. The throne of Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Those six. We got two more. So, we've got the tablet, the pen, the hellfire, paradise, the soul of the human being, and the throne of Allah. Got two more.
[Arabic recitation]
Is temporary. And alhamdulillah, it's temporary. No, that's part of Jenna. That has that is not created. It's not part of creation. Mhm.
[Arabic recitation]
Al is part of Jenna. Al is part of is part of Jenna, right? The Quran is the words of Allah. It's part of his attributes. Has no beginning or end. It's uncreated. Now, a hint. It goes with the alsi. Als the same thing? No. Als and ar.