Question 3: Fate and Predestination

This is one of the most intricate problems of religion.

• The traditional arguments about this problem are contradictory, similar to the arguments of reason.

The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Quran and the Traditions.

Many verses of the Quran teach that:

• all things are predestined
• man is compelled to do his acts.

It also has verses which say that man is:

• free in his acts
• not compelled in performing them.

The following verses assert that all the things are by compulsion, and are predestined:

“Everything[261] have We created bound by a fixed degree;”[118]

“With Him everything is regulated according to a determined measure.”[119]

“No accident happeneth in the earth, nor in your persons, but the same was entered in the Book verily it is easy with God.”[120]

Other verses say that man can acquire deeds by free will, and that things are only possible and not necessary:

“Or He destroyeth them (by ship-wreck), because of that which their crew have merited; though He pardoneth many things.”[121]

“Whatever misfortune befalleth you is sent you by God, for that which your hands have deserved.”[122]

“But they who commit evil, equal thereunto.”[123]

“It shall have the good which it gaineth, and it shall have the evil which it gaineth.”[124] [262]

“And as to Thamud, We directed them, but they loved blindness better than the true directions.”[125]

Sometimes contradiction appears even in a single verse of the Quran:

“After a misfortune hath befallen you (you had already attained two equal advantages), do you say, whence cometh this? Answer, This is from yourselves.”

[126] In the next verse, He says

“What happenth to you, on the day whereon the two armies met, was certainly by permission of the Lord.”[127]

“Whatever good befalleth thee, O man, it is from God; and whatever evil befalleth thee, it is from thyself;”[128]

Yet the preceding verse says:

“All is from God.”[129]

Such is also the case with the Traditions. The Prophet says:

“Every child is born in the true religion; his parents afterwards turn him into a Jew or a Christian.”

On another occasion he said:

“The following[263] people have been created for hell, and do the deeds of those who are fit for it. These have been created for heaven, and do deeds fit for it.”

The first Tradition says that the cause of disbelief is one’s own environments; while faith and belief are natural to man.

The other Tradition says that wickedness and disbelief are created by God, and man is compelled to follow them.

This has led Muslims to be divided into 2 groups:

1. Mutazilites

These believed that man’s wickedness or virtue is his own acquirement, and that according to these he will be either punished or rewarded.

2. Jabarites

They say that man is compelled to do his deeds.

The Asharites have tried to adopt a mean between these two extreme views.

They say that man can do action, but the deeds done, and the power of doing it, are both created by God.

But this is quite meaningless. For if the deed and[264] the power of doing it be both created by God, then man is necessarily compelled to do the act. This is one of the reasons of the difference of opinion about this problem.

There is another cause of difference of opinion about this problem, than the traditional one.

This consists of the contradictory arguments advanced. For if we say that man is the creator of his own deeds, it would be necessary to admit that there are things which are not done according to the will of God, or His authority. So there would be another creator besides God, while the Muslims are agreed that there is no creator but He.

If, on the other hand, we were to suppose that man cannot act freely, we admit that he is compelled to do certain acts, for there is no mean between compulsion and freedom. Again, if man is compelled to do certain deeds, then on him has been imposed a task which he cannot bear; and when he is made to bear a burden, there is no difference between his work and the work of inorganic matter.

For inorganic matter has[265] no power, neither has the man the power for that which he cannot bear. Hence all people have made capability one of the conditions for the imposition of a task, such as wisdom we find Abul Maali, saying in his Nizamiyyah, that man is free in his own deeds and has the capability of doing them. He has established it upon the impossibility of imposing a task which one cannot bear, in order to avoid the principle formerly disproved by the Mutazilites, on account of its being unfit by reason.

The succeeding Asharites have opposed them. Moreover if man had no power in doing a deed, then it will be only by chance that he may escape from evil, and that is meaningless. Such also would be the case with acquiring goodness. In this way all those arts which lead to happiness, as agriculture etc., would become useless. So also would become useless all those arts the purpose of which is protection from, and repulsion of danger as the sciences of war, navigation, medicine etc. such a condition is quite contrary to all that is intelligible to man.

How is this contradiction which is to be found both in tradition and reason to be reconciled?

Apparently the purpose of religion in this problem is not to divide it into two separate beliefs, but to reconcile them by means of a middle course, which is the right method. It is evident that God has created in us power by which we can perform deeds which are contradictory in their nature.

But as this cannot be complete except by the cause which God has furnished for us, from outside, and the removal of difficulties from them, the deeds done are only completed by the conjunction of both these things at the same time. This being so the deeds attributed to us are done by our intention, and by the fitness of the causes which are called the Predestination of God, which He has furnished for us from outside. They neither complete the works which we intend nor hinder them, but certainly become the cause of our intending them—one of the two things. For intention is produced in[267] us by our imagination, or for the verification of a thing, which in itself is not in our power, but comes into being by causes outside us.

For instance, if we see a good thing, we like it, without intention, and move towards acquiring it. So also, if we happen to come to a thing which it is better to shun, we leave it without intention. Hence our intentions are bound and attached to causes lying outside ourselves.

To this the following words of God, refer “Each of them hath angels, mutually succeeding each other, before him and behind him; they watch him by the command of God.”[130] As these outside causes take this course according to a well defined order and arrangement, and never go astray from the path which their Creator hath appointed for them, and our own intentions can neither be compelled, nor ever found, on the whole, but by their fitness, so it is necessary that actions too should also be within well-defined limits, that is, they be found in a[268] given period of time and in a given quantity. This is necessary because our deeds are only the effects of causes, lying outside us; and all the effects which result from limited and prearranged causes, are themselves limited, and are found in a given quantity only.

This relation does not exist only between our actions and outside causes, but also between them and the causes which God has created in our body, and the well-defined order existing between the inner and outer causes.

This is what is meant by Fate and predestination, which is found mentioned in the Quran and is incumbent upon man. This is also the “Preserved Tablet.”[131]