The reports related on his authority...

The reports related on his authority, "that death was decreed for Isma‘il twice, but I requested Allah to abolish it and He did", supports this.

Nevertheless, there may be a decree which is suspended and may be changed in certain cases; Allah says: And He has decreed a term for you, and a term is fixed with Him [6:2], which makes it clear that there are two different sorts of terms of which one is conditional (liable to change), and might be lengthened or shortened, as may be seen in the saying of Allah: And no one groweth old who groweth old, nor is aught lessened of his life, but it is recorded in a book [35:11].

And His saying: And if the people of the township had believed and kept from evil, surely We should have showered them with blessing from the heaven and from the earth [7:96]. These verses demonstrate plainly that their terms were conditional, being lengthened in accordance with righteousness and cut short on account of evil.

Allah Almighty, reporting the speech of Noah, peace be upon him, says: Ask forgiveness of your Lord; surely, He is ever forgiving, He will send down upon you rain pouring in abundance [71:10-11]. So He made the length of their term and also the showering of His favour conditional upon their sincere contrition; then, when they failed (in this), He cut short their term and annihilated them.

Thus, (the reasoned argument given above) affirms that bada’ is concerned only with what is a conditional decree, and never involves a change of mind from one decision to another, or the mutability of opinion – Allah is Exalted far above what the liars allege.

Nonetheless, some of our companions asserted that originally bada’ designated the amendment of opinion, and the change of mind from one particular decision to another, and that it applied to Allah only in its metaphorical sense, in the same manner as 'anger' and 'pleasure' were applied to Him metaphorically. Yet this assertion does not harm our School, since metaphorical nouns can be applied to Allah if they are mentioned in Scripture (lit.

authorized by sam‘, that is, textual proof), and bada’ is, as we have demonstrated, one of these mentioned in Scripture.