Furthermore, belief in bada causes a human being to concentrate on God and ask Him to listen to his prayer and fulfill his needs, and to aid him in obedience to Him and keep him away from disobedience. This is because rejection of bada in the di‌ vine decree and upholding the view that what the Pen of Destiny has already written is unalterable, without exception, would cause a person who holds this belief to lose hope in the acceptance of his prayer. For, if what a person is asking froJl! God has already been decreed by the Pen of Destiny, then, indeed, it is bound to happen, and there is no need for prayer and supplication; and if the Pen has decreed something else, then it would never happen and it would be useless for him to supplicate and to implore God for it to happen. When a person loses the hope of being granted his request, he would give up supplicating his Creator since there is no use in doing so. The same applies to all the devotions and charitable works that are reported, on the authority of the Imams, to be effective in increasing the lifetime, the sustenance, and other things that a person might desire.
This, then, is why numerous traditions narrated on the authority of the Imams lay
great stress on the significance of bada in the divine decree.
Al-Saduq relates a tradition in his al-Tawtzrd that he traces back to Zurara, who received it from one of the two Imams, al-Baqir or al-Sadiq: "God has not been worshiped with a thing [more fervently than with] bada." ١٦ In another tradition he relates that Hisham b. Salim heard the Imam al-Sadiq say: "Nothing has caused God to be seen as powerful more clearly than a thing like al-bada." ١١
In still another tradition, al-Kulaynirelates, from Mul;lammad b. Muslim, that the
Imam al-Sadiq said:

God did not send a prophet until He required three characteristics in him: the affirma‌ tion of servanthood [in relation to God], the rejection of partners [for God], and the acknowledgment that God hastens what He will and delays what He wi١١. ١٨

The reason behind attaching this significance to al-bada is that the rejection of it has the same effect as the view that maintains that God does not have the power to change what has been decreed by the Pen of Destiny-Exalted is God above that. This is because both views would cause a person to lose faith in his supplications being answered by God, and this would [in turn] lead him to refrain from addressing his requests to God.

The Real Meaning of ai-Bada in the Shiite Doctrine

To recapitulate, the meaning of al-bada , as maintained by the Imamite Shates, is derived from ibda (bringing about)-that is, i{.har (disclosing, manifesting a real‌ ity). The term bada is applied to the act of i{.har on the basis of the revelation and the resemblance between the two acts. It has been used in this sense In some of the Sunni traditions.
Al-Bukhari, for example, relates a tradition, from AbU Amra, that Abu Hurayra told him that he heard the Prophet say: "There were three among the Children of Israel: a leper, a blind person, and a bald person. God resolved (bada lil-Llih) to test them. Thus, He sent them an angel who came to the leper...."١٩