Who Holds the Pen?

We have reached the last pillar of faith. And I will be honest with you. It is the trickiest one.

It is called qadar. Allah’s plan. Belief that everything that happens, the sweet and the bitter, the happy and the sad, happens with Allah’s knowledge and Allah’s plan. Nothing is an accident. Nothing catches Allah by surprise.

This is the pillar people have the most questions about. So let us walk through it slowly, and by the end, I hope your heart feels calm, not confused.

The four parts of the plan

Believing in Allah’s plan rests on four ideas. Let us take them one at a time.

One: Allah knows everything. The past, the present, and the future. Allah even knows what would have happened if things had gone differently. Think about it for a second. Could a God who does not know the future really be God? A God who is surprised by tomorrow? That makes no sense. A real God, a perfect God, must know all things. Not a leaf falls from a tree without Allah knowing it.

Two: Allah wrote it all down. The Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, told us that Allah recorded the plan of all creation fifty thousand years before He made the heavens and the earth. The very first thing Allah created was the Pen. And He said to the Pen, “Write.” The Pen asked, “Write what?” And Allah said, “Write everything that will happen, until the end of time.” Then, as the Prophet ﷺ said, the Pen was lifted and the ink dried. It is all written.

Three: Allah wills it. Nothing at all happens unless Allah allows it to happen. Not a single thing moves in this whole universe without Allah’s permission. When Allah wants something to be, He simply says “Be,” and it is.

Four: Allah creates it. Allah is the Maker of everything, even our very actions. We do not create things out of nothing; only Allah can do that.

The question everyone asks

Now, the moment you hear all that, one question jumps up in your mind. It is the same question people have asked for over a thousand years:

“If Allah already knows everything, and it is already written, then what is the point of me trying? Why should I do anything at all?”

Do not feel bad for asking it. The companions of the Prophet ﷺ, the very best of people, asked him this exact question. Several of them did. They said, “O Messenger of Allah, if everything is already written, if the pen is lifted and the ink is dry, why should we bother doing anything?”

And listen carefully to how the Prophet ﷺ answered them. He did not dive into deep, dizzy philosophy. He gave them a plain, practical answer. He said: Keep doing. Keep working. Everyone will find it easy to do what they were created for.

In other words: get up and act. Do not sit back and use “the plan” as an excuse to do nothing.

The secret is simpler than you think

Here is the key that unlocks the whole thing.

You already live this way every single day, and you never complain about it.

You want food, right? You do not sit at an empty table saying, “Well, if Allah wants me to eat, food will fall from the sky.” Of course not. You get up, you go to the kitchen, you cook, and then you eat. And all of that, the cooking and the eating, was part of Allah’s plan too.

You want water? You do not wait for it to pour into your open mouth. You walk to the tap and fill your cup. You take the steps. You do.

So if you understand this for food and water, why not for the next life? You want Paradise? Then live like the people of Paradise. Pray, be kind, stay away from sin. You do not know what Allah has written for you, so you cannot use it as an excuse. You strive, and the doors that Allah has written for you will open, and you will find yourself walking through them.

The golden rule of qadar

So here is a rule to remember for life. Write it on your heart:

Never use “the plan” as an excuse for the future. Only use it as comfort for the past.

If something sad already happened, a loss, a failure, a loved one who passed away, you can rest your heart and say, “This was Allah’s plan. There was nothing more I could have done.” That brings peace.

But you can never say, “I won’t pray because Allah didn’t plan for me to pray.” That is not faith. That is just laziness wearing a costume. You do not know what Allah wrote for you, so stop pretending you do. Get up and pray, and then you will be written among those who pray.

There is a beautiful lesson hidden in the very first story of creation. When Iblis, the devil, refused to bow to Adam and fell into sin, what did he do? He blamed Allah. He said, “Because You led me astray…” He pointed the finger up.

But when Adam, peace be upon him, made his mistake and ate from the tree, what did he say? He said, “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves.” He took the blame. He said sorry.

So there are two ways to deal with your mistakes. The way of Iblis, blaming Allah and your fate. Or the way of Adam, owning it and asking Allah to forgive you. We are the children of Adam. We choose his way.

But why is there pain?

Now for the hardest question of all, the one we promised long ago to answer. If Allah is loving and in charge, why is there pain in the world? Why sickness, why sadness, why disaster?

Take a deep breath. Here are some of the reasons, and they are full of light.

First, there is no such thing as pure evil. In everything that happens, even hard things, there is good mixed in, and our job is to dig for that good and grab as much of it as we can.

Second, think about it: how would we ever be kind if there were no one who needed kindness? How would we feed the hungry if no one was ever hungry? How would we be brave if nothing was ever scary? Some hardship in the world is what lets goodness come out of people.

Third, hard times wake us up. When life is easy, our hearts can go to sleep and drift far from Allah. But when a trouble hits, we suddenly turn back to Him, we pray, we call on Him. And that closeness to Allah is worth more than anything. One wise person even said that sometimes a person in pain builds such a sweet friendship with Allah, whispering to Him in the night, that he almost does not want the pain to leave.

Fourth, and most important, this life is not the whole story. People who forget Allah think this world is all there is, from birth to death, and that is it. But we know death is the beginning of the next life. Every unfair thing here will be made right there. Every tear cried in patience will turn into joy there. The Prophet ﷺ said that on the Day of Judgment, when the patient person sees the reward for their suffering, they will wish they had suffered even more.

And here is the truth underneath it all. This life is a test. You cannot pass a test if there are no hard questions on it. Allah said in the Qur’an: did people think they would be left alone, just saying “we believe,” without ever being tested? The harder the test, sometimes, the more Allah loves that person, because He wants to raise them higher. Look at Prophet Ayyub (Job), peace be upon him. He lost his family, his wealth, his health, and stayed patient, patient, patient. And Allah raised him to a rank most of us can only dream of.

Rest your heart

So do not let qadar scare you. Let it comfort you.

Believing in Allah’s plan should make your heart calm and steady. You are in the safest hands there are. When the early believers were threatened and frightened, they said, “Nothing will reach us except what Allah has already written for us. He is our Protector.” And their fear melted away.

So who holds the Pen? Allah does. The One who made you, who loves you, who knows the whole story from the first page to the last.

Do your part. Work hard, pray hard, and be kind. Then leave the rest to the One holding the Pen, and go to sleep with a peaceful heart. You could not be in better hands.