Occasionalism, dreams, and divine omniscience in Zia H Shah’s Quranic theology

Presented by Zia H Shah MD

God does not merely foresee the future — He authors every instant of it, and prophetic dreams are the signature on each page. This is the central thesis emerging from Zia H Shah MD’s extensive body of writing at thequran.love, where over 20 articles in the “occasionalism” category weave together Al-Ghazali’s 11th-century metaphysics, quantum physics, consciousness studies, and Quranic exegesis into a unified theological vision. Shah argues that Al-Ghazali’s doctrine — that God is the sole true cause of every event — finds its most powerful scriptural demonstration in Surah Yusuf, where four prophetic dreams planted in human consciousness are fulfilled with precision across decades. The implications are radical: if no natural cause operates independently of God, then prophetic dreams are not mysterious exceptions to the natural order but transparent windows into its deepest truth.

Al-Ghazali’s fire does not burn: the doctrine explained

Al-Ghazali (c. 1056–1111 CE), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writing in his landmark Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers), advanced what remains the most influential articulation of Islamic occasionalism. Thequran +2 His core claim: “The connection between what are believed to be the cause and the effect is not necessary.” thequran Fire does not burn cotton by its own power. Bread does not nourish by its own nature. God creates the burning, the nourishment, the motion — directly, at every instant. Thequran thequran

The philosophical argument proceeds in three steps. First, cause and effect are logically distinct entities — “This is not That; nor can That be This.” Since conceiving one without the other involves no logical contradiction, their connection cannot be logically necessary. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Second, observation reveals only conjunction, never causation itself: “Observation only shows that one is with the other, not that it is by it and has no other cause than it.” utm thequran This insight anticipates David Hume by over six centuries. Thequran Third, since genuine causation requires necessitation, and only God’s will truly necessitates, God alone qualifies as a genuine cause. Muslim Philosophy Created things, being inanimate and lacking will or knowledge, cannot be true agents.

Al-Ghazali’s famous fire-and-cotton illustration crystallizes the doctrine: “The one who enacts the burning by creating blackness in the cotton, causing separation in its parts, and making it cinder or ashes is God, either through the mediation of His angels or without mediation. As for fire, which is inanimate, it has no action.” Thequran thequran When philosophers objected that denying necessary causation leads to absurdity — books could turn into horses — Al-Ghazali replied that God maintains a “habitual course” (ʿādah) in nature. Allzermalmer Although deviations are possible, God creates in us reliable knowledge of what will ordinarily happen. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Thequran Natural laws are descriptions of God’s customary actions, not necessary truths. Thequran thequran

This doctrine is rooted in the Ash’arite theological tradition, which held that the world consists of atoms and accidents continuously recreated by God at every instant. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy +2 The universe exists “like a lightbulb that needs a steady current of electricity (divine power) to keep shining,” Thequran as Shah puts it. Accidents last only a single moment before God recreates them. Muslim Philosophy Thequran The concept of kasb (acquisition) preserves moral responsibility: humans “acquire” intention, but God creates both the action and the capacity to intend. Wikipedia Thequran

Twenty-two articles and one grand argument: Shah’s occasionalist project

Zia H Shah MD, a physician in Upstate New York and Chief Editor of the Muslim Times, thequran has authored more than 20 articles in the occasionalism category at thequran.love, Thequran published primarily between February and December 2025. Together they construct a systematic argument that occasionalism is not an obscure medieval doctrine but the most coherent framework for understanding reality as modern science reveals it.

The Quranic foundation is built verse by verse. Shah’s most frequently cited proof-text is Quran 8:17: “It was not you who killed them, but Allah killed them. And you did not throw when you threw, but Allah threw it.” He calls this “the clearest Quranic statement of occasionalism” — physical motion from the Prophet, effective result from God. Thequran Equally central is Quran 8:24: “Allah surely supervenes between a man and his mind,” which Shah uses to extend occasionalism from the physical to the mental realm, arguing that God controls even human intimate thoughts and consciousness. Thequran The Ayat al-Kursi (Quran 2:255) — “He knows what is before them and what is behind them, but they do not comprehend any of His knowledge except what He wills” thequran — serves as the theological anchor across multiple articles, connecting omniscience and omnipotence as the twin foundations from which occasionalism naturally follows. thequran

Shah catalogues dozens of Quranic verses supporting the doctrine thematically: God causes seeds to sprout (6:95), holds the heavens and earth lest they cease (35:41), Thequran holds birds aloft (67:19), provides water from the sky (56:68–70), controls hearing and sight (10:31), Thequran and is “engaged in an affair” every day (55:29). Thequran His article “The Glorious Quran Endorses Al Ghazali’s Occasionalism” presents the most comprehensive verse-by-verse demonstration that the Quran, read in its totality, depicts a universe utterly contingent on God at every moment.

The quantum physics connection forms Shah’s second major argument. He argues that quantum mechanics has vindicated Al-Ghazali after centuries of decline at the hands of Averroes and the European Enlightenment. Thequran Thequran The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum entanglement experiments provides his strongest scientific parallel: particles influence each other instantaneously across vast distances, violating classical local realism. Thequran Thequran “If we see quantum mechanics through the prism of the God of the Quran,” Shah writes, “then these latest discoveries confirm a very different reality.” Thequran He draws specific parallels between wave-function collapse and moment-by-moment divine decision, between quantum tunneling and the absence of necessary causal connection, Thequran and between Ash’arite atomic metaphysics (discrete units of time and space recreated each instant) and the Planck scale in quantum gravity. Medium thequran His article on the Many Worlds Interpretation provocatively suggests that the multiverse “realizes all the possibilities that al-Ghazali imagines God could choose from at each occasion.” Thequran

The everyday expression Inshallah (“if God wills”) provides Shah’s most accessible entry point. Thequran In “From the Expression Inshallah to Al Ghazali’s Occasionalism,” he argues that this phrase, commanded by the Quran itself (18:23–24), is “the linguistic and cultural foundation of occasionalism.” Thequran He notes that even prophets condition success on God’s will — Joseph says “Enter Egypt, Allah willing, in security” (12:99), Moses tells Khidr “You will find me patient, if Allah wills” (18:69). Thequran Shah concludes: “Al-Ghazali’s doctrine of Occasionalism is essentially the metaphysics of ‘Inshallah.’ It is an attempt to rigorously explain reality as the Qur’an depicts it — utterly contingent on God at every moment.” thequran Thequran

The consciousness argument completes the framework. Shah refutes Daniel Dennett’s illusionism about consciousness in a dedicated article, arguing that consciousness is a real, irreducible phenomenon. Thequran If consciousness cannot be explained by material processes alone, it points to a non-physical dimension of reality compatible with divine action. He cites Quran 17:85 — “The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little” — and explores Michael Pravica’s theory that consciousness might originate from “hidden dimensions of the universe rather than solely from brain activity.” Thequran In dreams, Shah suggests, consciousness may transcend ordinary spacetime. His article on the afterlife as “a dream-state or a virtual reality” argues that dreams demonstrate how consciousness can create entire experiential worlds without physical input, paralleling the occasionalist framework where God directly sustains all experiential reality. Thequran

Surah Yusuf’s four dreams: Arabic text, translation, and narrative architecture

Surah Yusuf (Chapter 12) is the Quran’s only surah dedicated entirely to a single narrative, Furqaan My Islam which the Quran itself calls aḥsan al-qaṣaṣ — “the best of stories” (12:3). Thequran Dreams serve as its structural backbone: the story opens with a dream, pivots on dreams, and closes with a dream’s fulfillment. The Last Dialogue Below are the four dreams with their Arabic text and the M.A.S. Abdel Haleem translation (Oxford University Press).

Dream 1 — Yusuf’s childhood dream: eleven stars, the sun, and the moon (12:4)

Arabic:

إِذْ قَالَ يُوسُفُ لِأَبِيهِ يَا أَبَتِ إِنِّي رَأَيْتُ أَحَدَ عَشَرَ كَوْكَبًا وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ رَأَيْتُهُمْ لِي سَاجِدِينَ

Abdel Haleem: “Joseph said to his father, ‘Father, I dreamed of eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw them all bow down before me.’” IslamAwakened

Ya’qub responds with immediate recognition of divine import (12:5–6): “My son, tell your brothers nothing of this dream, or they may plot to harm you… This is about how your Lord will choose you, teach you to interpret dreams, and perfect His blessing on you and the House of Jacob, just as He perfected it earlier on your forefathers Abraham and Isaac: your Lord is all knowing and wise.” IslamAwakened The eleven stars represent Yusuf’s eleven brothers; the sun his father; the moon his mother. SeekersGuidance +3 This dream is fulfilled approximately 40 years later My Islam in verse 100. Quran Gallery App

Dream 2 — The first prisoner’s dream: pressing wine (12:36)

Dream 3 — The second prisoner’s dream: bread and birds (12:36)

Both dreams appear in a single verse:

Arabic:

وَدَخَلَ مَعَهُ السِّجْنَ فَتَيَانِ ۖ قَالَ أَحَدُهُمَا إِنِّي أَرَانِي أَعْصِرُ خَمْرًا ۖ وَقَالَ الْآخَرُ إِنِّي أَرَانِي أَحْمِلُ فَوْقَ رَأْسِي خُبْزًا تَأْكُلُ الطَّيْرُ مِنْهُ ۖ نَبِّئْنَا بِتَأْوِيلِهِ ۖ إِنَّا نَرَاكَ مِنَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ

Abdel Haleem: “Two young men went into prison alongside him. One of them said, ‘I dreamed that I was pressing grapes’; the other said, ‘I dreamed that I was carrying bread on my head and that the birds were eating it.’ [They said], ‘Tell us what this means — we can see that you are a knowledgeable man.’” IslamAwakened +2

Yusuf’s interpretation comes in verse 41:

Arabic:

يَا صَاحِبَيِ السِّجْنِ أَمَّا أَحَدُكُمَا فَيَسْقِي رَبَّهُ خَمْرًا ۖ وَأَمَّا الْآخَرُ فَيُصْلَبُ فَتَأْكُلُ الطَّيْرُ مِن رَّأْسِهِ ۚ قُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ الَّذِي فِيهِ تَسْتَفْتِيَانِ

Abdel Haleem: “Fellow prisoners, one of you will serve his master with wine; the other will be crucified and the birds will peck at his head. That is the end of the matter on which you asked my opinion.” IslamAwakened +2

The first prisoner (the cup-bearer) was freed and restored to serving the king, as confirmed by his reappearance in verse 45 when the king has his own dream. Quran.com The second was crucified. Medium Quran O The decisive phrase قُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ (“the matter has been decreed”) signals irrevocable divine determination. Quran.com

Dream 4 — The King’s dream: seven fat cows and seven lean (12:43)

Arabic:

وَقَالَ الْمَلِكُ إِنِّي أَرَىٰ سَبْعَ بَقَرَاتٍ سِمَانٍ يَأْكُلُهُنَّ سَبْعٌ عِجَافٌ وَسَبْعَ سُنبُلَاتٍ خُضْرٍ وَأُخَرَ يَابِسَاتٍ ۖ يَا أَيُّهَا الْمَلَأُ أَفْتُونِي فِي رُؤْيَايَ إِن كُنتُمْ لِلرُّؤْيَا تَعْبُرُونَ

Abdel Haleem: “The king said, ‘I dreamed about seven fat cows being eaten by seven lean ones; seven green ears of corn and [seven] others withered. Counsellors, if you can interpret dreams, tell me the meaning of my dream.’” IslamAwakened

The courtiers dismiss it: “These are confusing dreams and we are not skilled at dream-interpretation” (12:44). IslamAwakened Islamicstudies.info Yusuf’s interpretation spans verses 47–49:

Arabic (12:47):

قَالَ تَزْرَعُونَ سَبْعَ سِنِينَ دَأَبًا فَمَا حَصَدتُّمْ فَذَرُوهُ فِي سُنبُلِهِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا مِّمَّا تَأْكُلُونَ

Arabic (12:48):

ثُمَّ يَأْتِي مِن بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ سَبْعٌ شِدَادٌ يَأْكُلْنَ مَا قَدَّمْتُمْ لَهُنَّ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا مِّمَّا تُحْصِنُونَ

Arabic (12:49):

ثُمَّ يَأْتِي مِن بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ عَامٌ فِيهِ يُغَاثُ النَّاسُ وَفِيهِ يَعْصِرُونَ

Abdel Haleem: “Joseph said, ‘You will sow for seven consecutive years as usual. Store all that you reap, left in the ear, apart from the little you eat. After that will come seven years of hardship which will consume all but a little of what you stored up for them; after that will come a year when the people will have abundant rain and will press grapes.’” IslamAwakened

The seven fat cows and green ears represent seven years of abundance; the seven lean cows and dry ears represent seven years of severe famine. Quran.com Yusuf adds a prophecy beyond the dream itself — a fifteenth year of relief and rain. My Islam Islamicstudies.info The fulfillment unfolds across verses 54–98: Yusuf is appointed over Egypt’s storehouses, the plenty comes, the famine strikes, and people from surrounding lands — including Yusuf’s own brothers from Canaan — come seeking grain.

The fulfillment that closes the circle (12:100)

Arabic:

وَرَفَعَ أَبَوَيْهِ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ وَخَرُّوا لَهُ سُجَّدًا ۖ وَقَالَ يَا أَبَتِ هَٰذَا تَأْوِيلُ رُؤْيَايَ مِن قَبْلُ قَدْ جَعَلَهَا رَبِّي حَقًّا ۖ وَقَدْ أَحْسَنَ بِي إِذْ أَخْرَجَنِي مِنَ السِّجْنِ وَجَاءَ بِكُم مِّنَ الْبَدْوِ مِن بَعْدِ أَن نَّزَغَ الشَّيْطَانُ بَيْنِي وَبَيْنَ إِخْوَتِي ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي لَطِيفٌ لِّمَا يَشَاءُ ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْعَلِيمُ الْحَكِيمُ

Abdel Haleem: “and took them up to [his] throne. They all bowed down before him and he said, ‘Father, this is the fulfilment of that dream I had long ago. My Lord has made it come true and has been gracious to me — He released me from prison and He brought you here from the desert — after Satan sowed discord between me and my brothers. My Lord is most subtle in achieving what He will; He is the All Knowing, the Truly Wise.‘” IslamAwakened +2

The Arabic word ḥaqq in قَدْ جَعَلَهَا رَبِّي حَقًّا (“My Lord has made it reality/truth”) is theologically significant — the dream was not speculation or probability but divinely ordained truth made manifest across four decades.

Yusuf’s closing prayer (12:101)

Arabic:

رَبِّ قَدْ آتَيْتَنِي مِنَ الْمُلْكِ وَعَلَّمْتَنِي مِن تَأْوِيلِ الْأَحَادِيثِ ۚ فَاطِرَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَنتَ وَلِيِّي فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ ۖ تَوَفَّنِي مُسْلِمًا وَأَلْحِقْنِي بِالصَّالِحِينَ

Abdel Haleem: “My Lord! You have given me authority; You have taught me something about the interpretation of dreams; Creator of the heavens and the earth, You are my protector in this world and in the Hereafter. Let me die in true devotion to You. Join me with the righteous.” IslamAwakened Shariahway

This prayer explicitly connects three things: divine authority (mulk), dream interpretation (ta’wīl al-aḥādīth), and cosmic creation (fāṭir al-samāwāt wa al-arḍ) — placing the ability to interpret dreams within the same theological framework as God’s creation of the universe itself.

Why precise dream fulfillment demands occasionalism

The connection between Surah Yusuf’s dreams and Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism is philosophically powerful, though Shah develops it implicitly across multiple articles rather than in a single dedicated essay. The argument runs as follows.

Under a naturalist framework — where causes operate independently through fixed laws — prophetic dreams would require a God who passively foresees how independent causal chains will unfold and then communicates this foreknowledge. But under occasionalism, the picture is radically different. God does not merely foresee; He actively produces every event at every instant. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy +2 The dream and its fulfillment are both direct acts of the same divine will. Thequran God plants the precise prophetic imagery in Yusuf’s consciousness during sleep (since He is the direct cause of all mental events, per Quran 8:24) Thequran and then orchestrates every subsequent event Thequran — the brothers’ jealousy, the well, the slave market, the minister’s wife, the prison, the cup-bearer’s forgetfulness, the king’s dream, the famine, the family’s journey — as continuous acts of His will at each instant. Fulfillment is not constrained by the mechanical operation of independent laws but is the unfolding of a single sovereign intention across time. Wikipedia Thequran

This framework explains several features of the Surah Yusuf narrative that naturalistic foreknowledge cannot easily account for. The 40-year gap between Yusuf’s childhood dream and its fulfillment required the convergence of countless human decisions — each one, under occasionalism, directly willed by God. The precision of the economic prophecy (seven years of abundance, seven of famine, one of relief) implies not just foreknowledge of weather patterns but active divine governance of agricultural, meteorological, and demographic reality across 15 years. Medium The individual fates of the prisoners — one freed, one crucified — demonstrate divine control over the minutiae of human justice systems. And the decisive phrase قُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ (“the matter has been decreed”) in verse 41 uses precisely the theological language of irrevocable divine determination. Quran.com

Shah’s broader corpus supports this synthesis. His article on Quran 8:24 argues that “Allah supervenes between a man and his mind,” extending occasionalism to consciousness itself. Thequran His article on the simulation hypothesis draws the parallel explicitly: “Our consciousness is like a variable running within God’s code.” Thequran Thequran His article on consciousness beyond the brain suggests that “in moments of creativity, insight, or dreaming, our awareness could be transcending 4D spacetime.” Thequran And his refutation of consciousness-as-illusion ensures the experiential reality of dreams cannot be dismissed Thequran — they are genuine moments of divine communication, not neural noise. Thequran

The Sufi mystic Ibn al-‘Arabi, whom Shah cites, described the world itself as “an illusion or a dream within God’s knowledge — the universe is His shadow, and He is its light.” Thequran Under this framework, the prophetic dreams within Surah Yusuf are dreams-within-the-dream: moments when the divine Dreamer reveals to a human consciousness a fragment of the total reality He is continuously authoring.

Ta’wīl: where interpretation meets reality

The Arabic term ta’wīl (تَأْوِيل) appears six times in Surah Yusuf and carries a meaning far richer than “interpretation.” Derived from the root meaning “to return to the origin,” ta’wīl signifies the process of tracing a symbol back to its ultimate reality. Quran Gallery App Quran Gallery App When Yusuf says in verse 100, “This is the ta’wīl of my vision from before,” he means not that he has intellectually decoded the dream but that reality has arrived at the destination the dream foretold. The dream’s ta’wīl is its real-world manifestation — the moment when the symbolic and the actual converge. Quran Gallery App

This concept bridges the gap between dreams and occasionalism in a theologically profound way. If God is continuously authoring reality, then every event is simultaneously a sign (āya) and an act. Thequran Thequran Dream interpretation becomes not puzzle-solving but perceiving the underlying divine intention that connects the symbolic vision to the events God will produce. Yusuf’s prayer in 12:101 attributes this capacity directly to God: “You have taught me something about the ta’wīl of events.” The prerequisite is not intellectual brilliance but spiritual receptivity — what Islamic tradition calls a purified heart (qalb salīm). Quran Gallery App

Surah Yusuf’s narrative structure enacts this theology. It opens with a dream-as-promise (12:4), descends through a seemingly chaotic sequence of betrayal and suffering that appears to contradict the dream, pivots on intermediate dreams that advance the plot (12:36, 12:43), and resolves when every thread converges in the fulfillment scene of verse 100. The Last Dialogue mehbooba The Surah forms a ring composition: the childhood dream of prostration finds its ta’wīl in the actual prostration of the family before the throne. Quran Gallery App Every intervening event — slavery, imprisonment, famine — was not a detour from God’s plan but an instrument of it. Thequran As Yusuf declares: “My Lord is most subtle in achieving what He will” (laṭīfun limā yashā’) My Islam — the Arabic laṭīf suggesting delicate, intricate, imperceptible orchestration.

Consciousness, sleep, and the soul as occasions for God

Shah’s writings develop a distinctive argument about consciousness that runs parallel to and reinforces his occasionalism. Several key threads converge.

Quran 39:42 provides the foundational verse: “Allah takes the souls at the time of their death; and those that do not die, during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term.” Thequran Sleep is here described as a partial withdrawal of the soul (nafs) by God — a “minor death.” Open Access Pub The Academy for Learning Islam This frames sleep and dreams not as mere neurological phenomena but as occasions of direct divine action on consciousness. In Shah’s article “Afterlife: A Dream-State or a Virtual Reality?”, he argues that dreams demonstrate consciousness creating entire experiential worlds without physical input, paralleling the afterlife as a consciousness-dependent reality sustained by God. Thequran

The Islamic tradition classifies dreams into three types: ru’yā ṣāliḥa (true visions from God), aḥlām (disturbing dreams from Satan), and ḥadīth al-nafs (self-generated reflections). SAPIENS +2 The Prophet Muhammad stated that “true dreams are one of the forty-six parts of Prophethood” Islam Awareness — the calculation derives from the first six months of his 23-year prophethood consisting entirely of true dreams before the angel Jibrīl appeared with waking revelation. Islam Awareness +2 After the seal of prophethood, true dreams remain the only remnant of prophetic experience available to believers. Furqaan Quran.com This theological framework treats dreams as a genuine modality of divine communication, not a metaphor.

Shah’s article on Quran 8:24 pushes the argument furthest: if “Allah supervenes between a man and his mind,” then consciousness itself is an occasion for divine action, not an autonomous product of neural computation. Thequran The mind-body problem — how immaterial consciousness interacts with physical matter Medium — dissolves under occasionalism: God is the universal intermediary, causing mental events on the occasion of physical events and vice versa. Thequran Shah writes: “The interface between soul and body is managed by God, the universal intermediary. This idea intriguingly resonates with some interpretations of quantum consciousness.” Thequran His refutation of the illusionist view of consciousness (against Dennett and Frankish) Wikipedia ensures that the experiential reality being attributed to divine sustenance is genuine, not an illusion produced by neurons. Thequran

The commentary tradition on Surah Yusuf, analyzed at IslamFromInside.com, pushes this further still: “Joseph’s dream of the sun, moon, and stars is more indicative of reality and the true state of affairs than the material reality around him. The dream is a revelatory witnessing of spiritual realities. The actual events in this world are a shadow of this reality.” Islamfrominside islamfrominside This inverts the conventional hierarchy — the dream state, under this reading, is more real than waking life because it reveals the spiritual bedrock that God is continuously authoring beneath the surface of material events. islamfrominside

Conclusion: the metaphysics of Inshallah

Shah’s project achieves something ambitious: it positions Al-Ghazali’s medieval occasionalism not as a historical curiosity but as a living theology with surprising resonance in an age of quantum mechanics, consciousness studies, and simulation theory. Thequran His culminating formula — “Al-Ghazali’s doctrine of Occasionalism is essentially the metaphysics of ‘Inshallah’” Thequran — captures the insight that the most common phrase in Muslim daily life expresses a metaphysical truth about the radical contingency of all reality upon God’s will. thequran Thequran

Surah Yusuf serves as the narrative demonstration of this metaphysics. Its four dreams encode a theology of time, knowledge, and causation: The Last Dialogue God plants precise visions in human consciousness, then authors every subsequent event to bring those visions to fulfillment across years and decades. The fact that a child’s dream can precisely predict events 40 years hence — across betrayal, slavery, imprisonment, political upheaval, and famine — is not merely evidence that God knows the future. Under occasionalism, it is evidence that God produces the future, moment by moment, atom by atom, thought by thought. Thequran Thequran As Shah writes in his conclusion to the article on divine causality: “Al-Ghazālī’s occasionalism is, therefore, nothing other than the philosophical articulation of this Quranic faith: Lā ilāha illā Allāh — there is no deity, and no cause, except God.” Thequran Thequran

The deepest insight may lie in verse 100’s phrase لَطِيفٌ لِّمَا يَشَاءُ — “most subtle in achieving what He will.” IslamAwakened Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism does not describe a God of crude intervention but one of infinite subtlety, working through what appears to be natural causation but is in reality continuous divine authorship. Wikipedia Thequran Dreams penetrate this veil of subtlety. They are moments when God lifts the curtain on His own creative process, letting a human consciousness glimpse the script before the scenes are enacted. In the occasionalist reading, Surah Yusuf’s message is that the entire universe operates on the same principle as a prophetic dream: it is authored, sustained, and fulfilled by the same single Will.