Predestination in Islam
Encyclopedia
- This is a sub-article of Sunni IslamSunni IslamSunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
, Aqidah and PredestinationPredestinationPredestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
.
Qadar ' onMouseout='HidePop("67219")' href="/topics/Hans_Wehr_transliteration">transl.
Hans Wehr transliteration
The Hans Wehr transliteration system is a methodology for transliteration of the Arabic alphabet, used in the Hans Wehr dictionary, with some changes enacted to the system between two editions of the dictionary. The transliteration system uses no digraphs. It is always displayed in the italic style...
: qadr, English: fate; divine foreordainment/predestination) is divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
destiny
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
in Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. More precisely, Qadar relates to the Knowledge and Omniscience of God about all events. Linguistically, Qadar means "measure", and when used in relation to God, means His exact knowledge of all events. Islamic theology claims that Omniscience of God is not rationally inconsistent with the notion of free will granted to man in his earthly life.
Definition
Qadar is an Arabic word for destiny and divine foreordainment. Qada' ' onMouseout='HidePop("98817")' href="/topics/Hans_Wehr_transliteration">transl.Hans Wehr transliteration
The Hans Wehr transliteration system is a methodology for transliteration of the Arabic alphabet, used in the Hans Wehr dictionary, with some changes enacted to the system between two editions of the dictionary. The transliteration system uses no digraphs. It is always displayed in the italic style...
: qaḍāʾ) is an Arabic word with multiple meanings incl. divine decree/fate. Both Arabic words may or may not be used interchangeably depending on the context. Essentially, destiny is what Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
has decreed.
Al-Qadr and the problem of Free Will
The core Islamic belief is that man has been given free will in this life, and the retribution in the Hereafter is based on how he utilizes his freedom of choice in the worldly trial. Reconciling it with the notion of predestination is one of the most complex issues in Islamic theology. However, scholars have responded to this problem by stating that God is independent of space-time, and hence al-Qadr actually refers not to predestination (which has the notion of time) but to His knowledge of all events and actions, irrespective of time. Thus, who will go to Hell and who will enter Heaven is determined (not predetermined) for God, but for man, he will always bear the fruit of his actions. The issue can be solved only by considering God and man independently, and not on the same scale. In other words, Omniscience of God is not the opposite of Free Will.Concept
The phrase reflects a MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
doctrine that Allah has measured out the span of every person's life, their lot of good or ill fortune, and the fruits of their efforts http://www.islam-qa.com/index.php?ref=96978&ln=eng. When referring to the future
Future
The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...
, Muslims frequently qualify any predictions of what will come to pass with the phrase Insha'Allah
Insha'Allah
Insha'Allah is an Arabic term to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will", sometimes spoken as DV; the Latin abbreviation for Deo volente or simply "God willing"...
, Arabic for "if God wills [it]." The phrase recognizes that human knowledge of the future is limited, and that all that may or may not come to pass is under the control of God.
Qadar is one of the aspects of aqidah. Some Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s believe that the divine destiny is when God wrote down in the Preserved Tablet
Tablet (religious)
A tablet, in the religious context, is a term traditionally used for religious texts.Jews and Christians believe that Moses brought the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai in the form of two stone tablets. According to the Book of Exodus, God delivered the tablets twice, the first set having been...
("al-Lauḥ al-Maḥfūẓ") all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written.
According to this belief, a person's action is not caused by what is written in the Preserved Tablet but, rather, the action is written in the Preserved Tablet because God already knows all occurrences without the restrictions of time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
.
In the Quran
The doctrine of Predestination is sometimes only implied, and not mentioned together with the first five articles required for belief (i.e., God, hereafter, angels, Book, and the Prophets), which are stated in the same verses one after the other. In fact, Quran does so more than once, God goes on to emphasise it in another way, He forbids the denial of the same five articles of belief, once again without the notion of Predestination;History
There are only two groups who represent the extremes regarding Qadar and are considered outside the fold of islam. Al-Jabiriyah are of the opinion that humans have no control over their actions and everything is dictated by Allah. The other group is Al-Qadiriyyah (not to be confused with the Sufi order, Al-Qaadirriyah) and they are of the opinion of humans having complete control over their destiny, to the extent that Allah does not even know what we will choose to do.Sunni view
At the time, Sunnis generally belonged to one of the two opposing groups. Over-time, with other differences in Aqaid (Theology) they became more distinct with the Ash'ariAsh'ari
The Ashʿari theology is a school of early Muslim speculative theology founded by the theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari...
and Mu'tazili
Mu'tazili
' is an Islamic school of speculative theology that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both in present-day Iraq, during the 8th–10th centuries. The adherents of the Mu'tazili school are best known for their having asserted that, because of the perfect unity and eternal nature of God,...
. This debate went on for centuries and many famous Sunni scholars adhere to one of these schools of thought. It is said today that 80% of Sunni's are Ashari.
Belief in al-Qadar is based on four things
- – العلم Al-'Alam – Knowledge: i.e., that Allah knows what His creation will do, by virtue of His eternal knowledge, including their choices that will take place.
- – كتابة Kitabat – Writing: i.e., that Allah has written every thing that exists including the destiny of all creatures in al-Lawh al-Mahfuud prior to creation.
- – مشيئة Mashii'at – Will: i.e., that what Allah wills happens and what He does not will does not happen. There is no movement in the heavens or on earth but it happens by His will. This does not mean that He forces things to happen the way they happen in the area of human beings' voluntary actions. It means that He knew what they will chose, wrote it and let it happen, and was, is and can always change it when He wants.
- – الخلق Al-Khalaq – Creation and formation: i.e., that Allah is the creator of all things, including the actions of His servants. They do their actions in a real sense, and Allah is the creator of them and of their actions.
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