Principles of Islam – Everything That Happens Is Decreed

“O son, you’ll never get the taste of Iman until and unless you realize that what has afflicted you was not to miss you and what has missed you was not to afflict you. I heard Allah’s Messenger saying: ‘The first thing Allah created was the pen. He ordered it to write. It said: My Lord what shall I write? He said: Write down the Destinies of all things until the establishment of the Hour’. O my son, I hear Allah’s Messenger saying ‘Who dies believing something other than this, does not belong to me.’ ”