Four important technical explanations of qaḍāʾ are discussed. They differ mainly over which aspect is called decree.
1. Judgment or command: a ruling whose addressee may or may not comply.
2. Eternal will: the divine will relating to created events.
3. Origination: God's act of bringing an event into existence.
4. Perfect knowledge and ordering: eternal knowledge of how events occur in their appointed arrangement.
These should not be collapsed into a single definition. If one theologian means divine willing by 'decree' and another means an actual sinful deed by 'the decreed thing', the assertions have different objects. Their implications for approval must be analyzed separately.