The booklet titled Lawh al-Mahfuz wa Umm-ul-kitab by Allama Ahmad bin Sulaiman bin Kamal Pasha, the booklet titled Ihtiyar-i juzi by Muhammad Akkarmani and the booklet titled Qada-Qadar by Abussuud Effendi were gathered together and were published in one single book in Turkish in Istanbul in hijri 1264, during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmajid Khan. We have deemed it suitable to simplify all three and write them.
The ayat, "Allahu ta'ala erases what He wishes. And He does not change what He does not wish to. Umm-ul-kitab is kept by Him," which is in Rad Sura, denotes Lawh-i mahfuz. Umm-il-kitab is the name of the Kalam-i ilahi (Divine Word), which is eternal. Angels cannot understand it. It is not with time. In other words, time is not recorded in it. No one but Allahu ta'ala knows it. It never ceases to exist. As for the Lawh al-Mahfuz, there are changes in it. Angels see it. A person's lifetime and sustenance may be changed on account of his deeds. The good may be changed into evil and the evil into good. Accordingly, He may make a person perform good deeds towards his death, thus sending him as a Believer to the next world. And He may make some other person commit an evil deed, and, thus, He may send him without iman. For this reason, Rasulullah 'sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam' would often say the Arabic prayer, "Allahumma, ya muqallibal-qulub, thabbit qalbi 'ala dinik" [O Allah! Thou alone canst change our hearts from good to evil, from evil to good. Make my heart fixed in Thine din, do not ever let it turn away from or abandon it!]. Upon hearing this, the Sahaba 'alaihimurridwan' said, "O Rasulallah 'sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam'! You, too, are afraid of turning renegade?" "Who on earth could ensure me from makr-i ilahi?" was his answer. [Makr means trick. Lexically, makr-i ilahi means divine trick.] For, a hadith al-qudsi states, "Men's hearts are in the power of Rahman. He changes hearts as He wishes." That is, He changes them to evil or to good with His Attributes of Jalal and Jamal. The first thing written in Lawh-i mahfuz was: "There is no Allah besides Me. Hadrat Muhammad 'sallAllahu alaihi wa sallam' is My Messenger and My beloved one, and all are My creatures. I am the Rab, the Creator of everything." Then prophets and all the people that will come to the world until Doomsday were registered, the good ones as Said and the evil ones as shaqi.
Qadar does not change. Qada happens compatibly with qadar. Qada changes a number of times every day and is created when it is suitable with qadar at last. Something which was recorded to be created as qada-i muallaq is changed on account of the slave's good deeds and is not created. The Awliya have compared qadar to a granary and qada to a scale.
[The (celebrated grand dictionary titled) Qamus writes in the entry 'qada': "Qada is a special section of qadar. Qadar is like the wheat stocked in a granary. And qada is like giving it in measured amounts. Hadrat 'Umar 'radiAllahu anh' came to Damascus. But when he heard that there was plague in the city, he did not enter the city. When he was asked, 'Are you running away from Allah's qada?' he said, 'I am running from Allah's qada to His qadar. For qadar may change unless it turns into qada." Qadar is like a salary list (payroll). And qada is like the distribution of the salary. Ibni Asir said, "Qada and qadar do not part from each other; for qadar is like the foundation of a building and qada is like the building itself." It is written in the entry 'qadar': "Qadar is Allah's knowing in the eternal past all that will happen. Qada is His creating the things in qadar when the time comes."]
Imam-i Ghazali says in his book Ihya-ul-'Ulum, "Qada-i muallaq is recorded in Lawh al- Mahfuz. If a person performs good deeds and his prayers are accepted the qada will change." A hadith ash-Sharif states, "Qadar does not change by taking precautions or avoiding. But a prayer that is accepted protects one against an approaching catastrophe." The prayer's repelling the catastrophe is also within qada and qadar. As a shield is a rampart against arrows, and as water causes grass to grow on earth, [and as the air's oxygen gas causes heat by burning the food substances in the cells of the living], so prayers cause Allah's compassion. A hadith ash-Sharif states, "Nothing can change the qada-i muallaq. But prayers only can change it; and favors, goodness only can lengthen one's lifetime." The recording of Allah's predestination, that is, qadar, in Lawh al-Mahfuz is qada. If the disaster predestined for a person is qada-i muallaq, that is, if it has been predestined also that the person would pray, he prays and, when the prayer is accepted, it prevents the disaster. Doing favors delays the ajal-i qada. But the ajal-i musamma does not change. The ajal-i qada is a person's lifetime which, for example, was predestined as sixty years if he performs some good deeds or gives alms or performs hajj (pilgrimage) and forty years if he does not do these. When the time is up, his death is not delayed even for one moment. While a person has, for example, three days left to live, thirty years may be added to his lifetime when he visits one of his relatives for Allah's sake. Another person may have, for example, thirty years more to live, but the rest of his lifetime may be reduced to three days because he neglects his relatives. It is written in the book Lubab-ut-tawil [alias Tafsir-i Hazin], that predestination was recorded in the Lawh al-Mahfuz in the eternal past. Nothing is recorded afterwards. In other words, the changes that would happen in Lawh al-Mahfuz, the lengthening or shortening of lifetimes, were recorded in eternity; this case is called qada-i muallaq. The changes in Lawh al-Mahfuz take place suitably with Allah's qadar, that is, His knowledge in eternity. When 'Umar 'radiAllahu anh' was wounded Qa'bul-akhbar said, "If 'Umar 'radiAllahu anh' wanted to live more he would pray, for his prayer would certainly be accepted." Those who heard this were surprised and said, "How dare you say so? Allahu ta'ala declares, 'Death is never late, nor does it come before time is up.' " Upon this he said, "Yes, death is not delayed when the time is up. But before the time is up, one's lifetime is lengthened owing to one's alms, prayers or pious deeds. For the sura of Fatir purports, 'Lifetimes of all and the shortening of lifetimes are all recorded.' "
Every year [on the Barat night, which is the fifteenth night of the month of Shaban], the happenings of the coming year, deeds, lifetimes, causes of death, promotions and demotions, and everything, are recorded in the Lawh al-Mahfuz.
Two people came to Dawud 'alaihissalam' and complained about each other. He listened to them, settled the matter and they went off; Hadrat Azrail (Angel of Death) came to him and said, "One of these two people has one week before his death. The other's lifetime was over a week ago, but he did not die." When Hadrat Dawud was astonished and asked the reason why, Hadrat Azrail said, "The latter had a relative who was offended with him. He visited him and reconciled himself with him. For this reason Allahu ta'ala decreed to add twenty years to his life-time." [It is written in the sixty-second couplet of Qasida-i-Amali: "The lifetime of a person killed is not cut." In other words, his life has not been cut in the middle at that moment. Ahmad Asim Bey, translator of Qamus, explains the couplet as follows: "According to the Ahl as-sunnat, the time of death of a person killed is the moment when he is killed. His lifetime has not been cut in the middle. Each person has one time of death."] As it is seen, it is strongly necessary to visit your relatives if they are Muslims and obey the Shariat. You should visit them at least once a week or month, not more rarely than every forty days. If he lives far away, you should please their hearts with letters. You should not neglect this though you may be offended with them or cross with them. Even if your relatives do not visit you or answer your letters, you should not give up visiting them in person or by sending presents, regards or letters. Allahu ta'ala commands visiting the relative who is Muslim and pious. The command will have been carried out by doing as we say now. It is written in the books Al-Bariqa and Al-Hadiqa, "It is a grave sin to break off relations with relatives. It is wajib to visit a relative who is zi rahm-i mahram, whether it is a man or a woman. It is not wajib to visit a relative who is zee rahm, but na-mahram, e.g. the daughter of one's uncle, or a relative who is not zee rahm. But it is mustahab to send them presents or regards." Also, we should pity orphans and should not hurt them. A person who fondles an orphan on the head will be given the thawab of hajj. If Allahu ta'ala loves a slave of His, He makes him do pious deeds that are good for the Hereafter. If a person is not blessed with Allah's hidayat he does not come round to the right course even if he reads hundreds of books or listens to lots of sermons. In other words, to advise a person who is not prone to being trained is like teaching tajwid to an ox. [Tajwid is the branch of knowledge teaching how to read the Qur'an correctly.]
[Also, it depends on the predestination to find a doctor or to find medicine. Allahu ta'ala creates causes suitably with His predestination, decree. As has been known for a very long time, if a person has not completed his lifetime, when one of his limbs is cut his vein will be bound, or he will be given medicine, and will not die. If his lifetime is completed, someone to bind the vein will not be found, he will lose blood, the blood will be infected, and he will die. Also, it depends on whether the time for death has come or not if the healthy heart of a person who is about to die will or will not be transplanted on a severely ill person whose heart muscles do not function. Heart transplantation does not certainly cure the ill person. It has caused death to many people.
On the Rising Day everybody will be resurrected from his grave with the same figure, stature and sizes of limbs as he had when he died. Each person's coccyx will not change but his other limbs will be recreated on this bone, the souls will find these new bodies and enter them. The souls' entering these new bodies is not metempsychosis. Metempsychosis is a concept that can be thought of in this world. There cannot be metempyshosis in the next world. Man's body, limbs change in the world, too. The flesh, the fat, the skin, the bones of a forty year old person are different from those which he had when he was a child. But he is the same person. For, man means soul. The body changes, but the soul does not. A person's finger-prints never change. No person's finger-prints are like another's. The shape of the lines on a person's finger- tips form before he is born, while his soul enters his body. They never change until the person dies and his body decays. It has been observed that they have remained the same on five-thousand year old mummies. Each of the lines on the finger-tips is made up of holes arranged side by side. Each tiny hole leaks sweat. When a person holds something, the sweat that leaks out sticks to it and remains there in the shape of the lines. When some chemical that can color the sweat is put on that thing the person's finger-prints are seen on it. In the eightieth page of the Persian book Kimya-yi Se'adet, Imam-i Muhammad Ghazali, a great scholar, says, "As the bodies which a person has at various ages are different from one another, so he will be resurrected from the grave with a body which has the same shape and stature but which is made up of different motes. When this writing of ours is understood well, there will no longer be need for questions such as: if a man eats another man, on which man will the eaten limb be recreated, on the man eaten, or on the one who ate him? For, not the limbs themselves but their copies will be created."]
