A widely cited hadith, transmitted through al Tirmidhi among other collectors, has a Bedouin ask the Prophet whether he should tie his camel and then place his trust in God, or leave it untied and trust in God, and receive the answer to tie it first, and then trust in God, a teaching akhlaq literature treats as the definitive rebuttal against reading tawakkul as fatalism or as an excuse for inaction.
Ghazali situates the virtue within a wider metaphysical picture of secondary causation, arguing that God has established a world of ordinary means, medicine for illness, effort for livelihood, precaution for safety, and that using those means is itself part of trusting God rather than a lapse from it, since God is the one who instituted the means in the first place; true tawakkul, on this reading, is the inner confidence that the outcome ultimately rests with God regardless of how carefully the means were used, not a refusal to use them. The Quran commands believers repeatedly to put their trust in God after having taken counsel and made a decision, a sequence, consultation, decision, then trust, that later ethical literature reads as establishing a clear order of operations rather than presenting trust as a substitute for deliberation.