“With contentment for Your providence and in surrender to Your command.

“With contentment for Your providence and in surrender to Your command. There is no object of worship besides You.” Furthermore, in an oration before he left Mecca he said: رضا الله رضانا أهل البيت. “The satisfaction of Allah is in our satisfaction; that of the .”[^4] In regard to divine providence, the certainness of a person’s action does not negate the fact that it is voluntary because divine providence regarding an act pertains to all its possible circumstances not the act in and of itself.

For example, if God wants a person to perform a specific volitional action by his own free will, the external realization of this volitional act will be certain and unavoidable because the will of God has applied to it. Simultaneously, for the human in question it is voluntary and possesses the quality of possibility—as opposed to inevitability (regard carefully).

﴾ “And cast not yourselves by your own hands into destruction…”[^5] Why, why, why? The answer to all these questions has already been made clear from the foregoing discussion and there is no need for reiteration.

Second type of Imamate knowledge: normal knowledge According to the Qur’an, the Prophet (S) and the Imāms (‘a) of his pure lineage are humans like the rest of us and the actions they perform in the course of their lives are similar to those of other humans–volitional and in accordance to normal knowledge.

Like other people, the Imāms (‘a) determine the goodness and evil, and advantages and disadvantages of things through normal knowledge intending to do what is worthy of being done and endeavoring accordingly. If external causes, factors, and conditions are favorable, their endeavors are successful and if causes and conditions are adverse, they fail. The fact that the Imāms (‘a) know the details of all past and future events has no effect on voluntary acts—as we have stated.

The Imāms (‘a) are like other human servants of God and are obligated to perform religious duties.