Sunnat Allah (God's pattern in creation and history)

God's way (sunna) is the fixed pattern that creation and history follow. In his commentary on al-An'am 111 to 115, Muhammad Rashid Rida reads that the arrogant and affluent who oppose the truth are the ones who oppose the callers to it from among the prophets and their heirs, and that this holds in every age. ^{1 2}

Rida holds that the wicked rebel who is arrogant opposes the callers to the truth, and that the corrupting devils are the affluent leaders and the hard-hearted whom enmity and tyranny have corrupted, whether from humankind or the jinn. ² Al-An'am 112

Rida uses the terms of the sociologists: the struggle for survival between opposites, and "natural selection", which leads to the victory of truth and the survival of the best. He illustrates this with the image of foam and water in the verse of al-Ra'd, and holds that worldly life is a struggle in which only the patient and steadfast who strive remain. ^{2 3}

Rida holds that victory in conflict goes to those who are more attentive to God's ways in military and social preparation, and in high moral qualities such as patience and steadfastness. He reproaches Muslims who thought that calling themselves Muslims was enough for victory, while they opposed their religion's guidance through injustice and wickedness. ^{3 4}

In his commentary on al-Nisa', Rida mentions a way of God in the Qur'an: that a nation, through its solidarity, inheritance and the following of its later generations after its earlier ones, is treated as one person, so that what earlier members did is attributed to later ones. ⁵

Rida answers those who argue from God's will to justify sin, and holds that God did not will to compel people to their actions, and that people are prepared for good and evil and are free to choose one of them. ⁴

All of this is Rida's reading of God's ways, and it is attributed to him here. The views of the earlier exegetes on the meaning of sunna have not yet been added, nor has what the volume presents on the disagreement of the theologians about destiny been read.