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Only after making intelligent and thorough use of his human powers had he trusted himself to the divine will, thereby clarifying for us the meaning of at-tawakkul ala Allah (reliance on God, trusting oneself to God): responsibly exercising all the qualities (intellectual, spiritual, psychological, sentimental, etc.) each one of us has been granted and humbly remembering that beyond what is humanly possible, God alone makes things happen. Indeed, this teaching is the exact opposite of the temptation of fatalism: God will act only after humans have, at their own level, sought out and exhausted all the potentialities of action. That is the profound meaning of this Quranic verse: “Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.”1
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Tariq Ramadan (In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad)