FREE WILL AND PRE-DESTINATION

INTRODUCTION

Qadar is the Arabic word for Destiny. Qada' is the Arabic word for Decree. They may or may not be used
interchangebly depending on the context. Essentially, Destiny is what Allah has decreed. Allah has
knowledge of everything in his creation. Nothing occurs except by his will. Human beings are given free
will, and it must be made clear that destiny does not have a cause-and-effect influence of the choices
humans make. The choices that humans make are all within Allah's knowledge.

The destiny of everything is recording in Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuud (The Preserved Tablet). In an authentic
hadith narrated by At-Tirmithee and Abu Dawuud, Prophet Muhammad said “Verily, the first thing Allah
created was the pen. He said to it: ‘Write.’ It replied: ‘My Lord, what should I write?’ So He said: ‘Write
all that will occur.’ So, in that hour, everything that will occur until the Day of Recompense was
recorded.” Another hadith indicates that this was 50,000 years prior to creation.

Free will and predestination has been a prominent topic in Islamic religious thinking. For Muslims, the
basis of the discussion is found in the Qurʾān and to a lesser extent in ḥadīth (reports from and about
Muḥammad (SAW) often called "traditions"), some of which reflect pre-Islamic Arab beliefs.

Pre-destination in Pre-Islamic Arabia

Something is known of the outlook of the pre-Islamic Arabs from what has been preserved of their poetry.
In this we find a strong belief that much of human life, especially misfortune, is determined by time
(dahr, zaman). It has sometimes been thought that time here is the same as fate, but since the same
determination of human life is sometimes attributed to "the days" or even "the nights," the idea of time
must be uppermost. Time here is not something to be worshiped but rather a natural fact, not unlike "the
course of events."

It was believed that a person's ajal, the term or the date of the person's death, was determined or
predetermined. A person destined to die on a certain day would die then, no matter what he or she did. It
was also believed that a person's rizq, "provision" or "sustenance," that is, food, was also determined.
This fatalistic attitude helped the nomads to survive in the harsh conditions of desert life. In the Arabian
deserts the regularities of nature experienced elsewhere tended to be replaced by irregularities. One who
tried to take precautions against all eventualities would become a nervous wreck, but a readiness to accept
whatever happened fatalistically reduced anxiety and thus was an aid to survival. It is to be noted,
however, that in the belief of the nomads it is the outcome of human actions that is determined, not the
actions themselves.
Pre-destination in the Qur’an

The belief of the pre-Islamic Arabs in the control of events by time is described in the Qurʾān (surah
45:24): "There is only our present life; we die, and we live, and time [dahr] alone destroys us." The
conception of the ajal, or term of life, also occurs several times, but it is God who both fixes the ajal
beforehand and then brings about the person's death: "He is the one who created you from clay, and then
fixed an ajal" (6:2); "God will not defer [the death of] any person when his ajal comes" (63:11). There is
thus a sense in which God takes over the functions of time; indeed, there is a ḥadīth that reports that the
Messenger of God said that God said, "The sons of Adam insult dahr, but I am dahr." There are also
several passages in the Qurʾān in which it is stated or implied that humankind's fate is not merely
determined by God beforehand but also written down: "No misfortune has happened either in respect of
the land or of yourselves, but it was in a book before we [God] brought it about" (57:22). A clear
statement of the uselessness of trying to avoid what has been predetermined is given in a passage about
those who criticized Muḥammad's decision, when attacked in Medina by the Meccans, to go out to Mount
Uhud to fight: "If you had been in your houses, those for whom killing was written down would have
sallied out to the places of their falling" (3:154). The Qurʾān also speaks of God as the source of
man's rizq, or provision: "He lavishes rizq on whom He wills, or stints it" (30:37); this may be regarded as
a reflection of the common experience in desert life that one tribe might have plenty while a neighboring
tribe was starving.

Pre-destination in the ḤadĪth (Traditions)

Western scholars formerly thought that all ḥadīth were predestinarian and saw in this the reason why al-
Ḥasan al-Baṣrī based his arguments on the Qurʾān and not on ḥadīth. There are indeed a few ḥadīth that
express an opposite view, but the most likely reason for the absence of ḥadīth from al-Ḥasan's arguments
is that at the time he was writing they were not regarded as having the authority later ascribed to them and
perhaps were not widely known and circulated. Had they been generally regarded as authoritative, he
would surely have had some argument against them. It was the jurist al-Shāfiʿī, about a century after al-
Ḥasan, who gave ḥadīth an assured place in Islamic thought as one of the "roots of law," and by his time,
the study of ḥadīth had become much more extensive.

It will suffice here to mention some of the best-known predestinarian ḥadīth. One was the report that the
Prophet had said, "The first thing God created was the pen; then he said to it, 'Write all that will happen
until the Last Day.'" Another group of sayings of the Prophet speaks of an angel being entrusted with the
child in the womb and asking God to determine whether it is male or female, whether it is to be fortunate
or unfortunate, what is its rizq and what its ajal. Again, in connection with the act of a Muslim fighter at
the Battle of Uhud, who took his own life when his battle wounds became unbearable, the Prophet is
reported to have said, "One man will work the works of the people of Paradise until he is only an arm's
length from it, and then the book will overtake him, and he will work the works of the people of Hell and
enter it," while in the case of another man the reverse will happen. Associated with such ḥadīth were
some reported remarks by early Muslims to the effect that, if one wants to avoid hell, one must believe
that God determines both good and bad, and that what reaches one could not have missed one, and what
misses one could not have reached one.

Reasons for Belief in Free Will

1. The Collective Conscience

Philosophers and divine scholars give different reasons for free will of the human being. The clearest
reason given by the supporters of free will: The ‘universal’ or ‘collective’ conscience of human beings.

That is, no matter what we deny, we cannot deny the reality that in all human societies, including both the
worshippers of God and the materialists, East and West, ancient and modern, wealthy and poor,
developed or underdeveloped, of whatever culture, all without exception, agree that a law should rule
human beings and that human beings are responsible before the law and people who disobey the law must
be punished.

In other words, the rule of law, the responsibility of individuals before it and the punishment of those who
disobey the law are things which all intelligent people agree with and it was only primitive tribes who did
not officially recognise these three things.
The fact that we explain this as the general conscience of human beings of the world is the clearest proof
of the existence of free will in human beings and the fact that they have free choice.

2. Justice
That which we have said above was about the contradiction between the school of predestination and the
common conscience of the intelligent of the world, both from the point of view of supporters of religion
and people who do not at all accept religion.

But from the point of view of religion thought, there is another sure reason for recognising the falsity of
the school of fatalism. (And if fatalism were to be believed, religion as we know it, would have to be
altered).
How can we reconcile the Justice of God which we proved in previous lessons with the school of
fatalism? How is it possible that God oblige someone to do an evil deed? Then punish him because he did
it. This does not agree with any kind of logic!

In addition, in religion, one of the first issues we encounter is ‘duty’ or ‘responsibility’, but does ‘duty’ or
‘responsibility’ make any sense if a person has no choice?

The Holy Qur’an and Free Will

The Holy Qur’an states this issue directly and proves the free will of human beings and there are hundreds
of verses which talk about free will. All the verses which relate to commanding virtue and preventing vice
are all proof of the free will of human beings because if a person was destined to do so, commanding
them to do so would make no sense. All the verses which speak of blame and reproach against the evil
doers and praise for the good doers are proof of free will because if one was destined to do whatever one
did, blame or praise would make no sense.

All the verses which speak about the questioning on the Day of Judgement and the Judgement in that
Court and then the rewards and punishments and heaven and hell are proof of free will because if one was
to assume that everything was predestined then questioning, judging, rewards and punishments would all
be oppressive. Some explicit verses of the Qur’an which say that a human being is responsible for his or
her deeds are:

“Every soul will be (held) in pledge for its deeds.” (Surah Muddathir, 74: 38).

“(Yet) in each individual in pledge for his deeds.” (Surah At-Tur, 52: 21).

“We showed him the Way: whether he be grateful or ungrateful (rests on his will).” (Surah Al-Insaan,
76:3).

“But you will not except as God wills…” (Surah Al-Insaan, 76:30).

References:

Ahmad, A.G. (1963): The religion of Islam. Cairo, Egypt

Glorious Qur’an.

Watt, W.M (1985): Islamic Philosophy and Theology.

Greer, C.D. (1984): Religions of Man.

www://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/predestination_in_islam.