The Kinds of Predestination: Mubram and Mu‘allaq

Question

The decision of predestination is irrevocable: the Pen has already written, the scrolls have dried, the Pen has been lifted. Now the objector objects: if the decision has already been made, then why punishment and reward for the servant? For example, if someone committed suicide, why should he be punished? And how many kinds of predestination are there?

Answer

The decision of predestination is irrevocable. If punishment and reward are also accepted as a decision of that same predestination, what difficulty is there? In reality, predestination is of only one kind — the irrevocable, which in Arabic is called mubram; and the second kind, found in some texts, is with respect to the servants and is called mu‘allaq (suspended, conditional)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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