This topic emerged due to the contact of Muslims with Greek philosopher who posed questions such as 'Does man acts according to free will or Allah forces the man to act'

The Mu’tazilah

The Mu’tazilah responded by first establishing the central role of Allah's justice in order to prevent anyone accusing Allah of oppression. They concluded that Allah's justice has no meaning unless man has free will. Thus, they said man created his actions and he if free to do what he likes because if he does something from his own will, by choice without coercion, then his reward and punishment are both rational and just. They maintained that if Allah creates human beings and also forces them into a certain path, such as making people sinners or believers, then to punish the sinners for being sinful and rewarding the obedient believers for believing would be unjust.

The Mu’tazilah supported their opinions based on logic with verses from the Glorious Quran, such as, -in translation:

“But Allah never wishes injustice to His Servants.” (Ghafir:31).

“Say: "With Allah is the argument that reaches home: if it had been His Will, He could indeed have guided you all." (Al-an’aam:149)

“Allah intends every facility for you; He does not want to put you to difficulties.” (Al-Baqarah:185)

They used logic to prove their arguments, and then tried to quote many naqli (textual) proofs to support their argument such as:

“Verily never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls).”(Ar-Ra’d:11)

“That Day will every soul be requited for what it earned.”(Ghaafir:17)

To summarise their view, they believed that due to Allah’s Justice which has been mentioned in the text it is impossible that Allah forced man to act and then punish or reward him as this would be unjust. Therefore people have free will in all of their actions and it is they who creates their actions and the attributes that occur in things as a result of their action.

i.e. the Muatazilla started the discussion with

Thought 1 :ALLAH IS JUST

Then they built more thoughts on this original premise

Thought 2: No point in Allahs Justice if man doesn’t have free chioce in actions.

Then they quoted Ayahs of the Quran which talk about the attributes of Allah and Allahs Actions which apparently “support” they view.

The Fallacy in this is here:

They started the discussion with a premise which is beyond the senses i.e. its is beyond man to understand i.e. man cant comprehend how Allah is Just as this is only something he can invisage, we cant even imagine it. So to build more thoughts on this would result in an doubtdul thought not suitable for the Islamic belief. I.e they started to discuss the sensory inaccessible and therefore equated the unseen to man i.e. the equated Allahs Attributes to mans actions. BIG MISTAKE.

I.e. they let the intellect free to inquire into matters are incapable for man to judge.

Al Jabriyah

In the atmosphere created by the Mu’tazilah a new group emerged, known by the name Al Jabriyah. They held the opinion that man was compelled to carry out actions, man had no free will and no power to initiate his actions. In other words, man was like a feather in the wind or a log floating on the sea.

They held the opinion that man was compelled to carry out actions, man had no free will and no power to initiate his actions. In other words, man was like a feather in the wind or a log floating on the sea.

They argued, if man creates his own actions then Allah’s power does not extend to cover everything, i.e., man is a partner with Allah in creating things in this world. if it is held that Allah's power creates things, then, by definition, man has nothing to do with creating the actions; neither in part or in full.

Al-Jabriyah maintained that Allah is the creator of man's deeds and according to Allah's will the individual carries out the action. AI-Jabriyah believed that man was nothing more than a receiver compelled by Allah, like any object, to carry out actions without any will or influence. They brought verses. of Quran to support their opinions, such as: "You do not guide whom you like, rather Allah guides whom He likes." [al-Qasas] “Allah has created you and your handiwork.”

i.e. The Jabriya started the discussion with

Thought 1: Allahs power, Allahs Will, Allahs creating

Then they built more thoughts on this premise

Thougth 2 – If man creates action – Allah is not all powerful
- If Man creates action it is according to mans will and not Allahs
- If man creates action then Allah has a partner in creating

Therefore they concluded that man has no free will

The Fallacy is here;

They started the discussion with thoughts which are beyond the senses. They left the discussion of the sensory accessible and started to discuss the sensory inaccessible. I.e. man cant comprehend the power of Allah, the Will of Allah and the ability to create that Allah has – man does not have any of these abilities and cant imagine what it is like/cant understand the abilities, only Allah has knowledge of these. But we reaffirm belief in them because Allah tells us about them in a definite source of evidence – the Quran. So for man to build more thoughts on these thoughts would only yield indefinite thoughts which are not suitable for the Islamic Aqeedah.

I.e they started to discuss the sensory inaccessible and therefore equated the unseen to man i.e. the equated Allahs Attributes to mans actions. BIG MISTAKE.

I.e. they let the intellect free to inquire into matters are incapable for man to judge.

Both groups of people started the discussion with Allahs Attributes/actions something which beyond the senses and not suitable to build definite thoughts on.

Both didn’t realise the limitations of the mind

Both used logic where logic can be used, i.e. logic which is not based on a sensed reality.

The Salafi/wahabi/Ahlu Sunnah view to Al Qada Wal Qadr

Salafis/Wahabis have a compromise solution between muatazila and jabriya as they dont except the extremes of the other views so they attempted to bring together the views of the Mu’tazilah and Jabriyah in a synthesis.

They said all man's actions occur by the will of Allah. If Allah wants something He merely says "Be and it is.' They contented that Allah has bestowed on every creature certain qualities, like good and bad, and these qualities contain reward and punishment. Man's deeds, therefore, are the result of destiny. As for the sinful and disbelievers, they argued that Allah wants the sinners to be sinful and the disbelievers to be disbelievers, not by obligation but by their choice. Allah knew that they, by choice, would become sinners and disbelievers.

They were different to the Jabriyah in that they believed that man has free will but Allah creates mans actions, in order to explain this they came out with the concept of Kasb Iktiari.

Basically it means that man has free will but Allah knows mans will and therefore creates mans actions in reality. So you have the free will to turn right or left, if you decide to turn left Allah knows this and makes you turn left. You have the free will to attempt to hit someone, if you decide to hit him, it is Allah that creates the action.

They used the same evidences as the Jabriyah in proving that Allah creates the actions of man. Some of the textual evidences they used for proving the concept of Kasb Iktiari are:

“Let him who will, believe, and let him who will, reject (it)” (Al-Kahf:29) and His (swt) saying, “It gets every good that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns.”(Al-Baqarah:286)

In reality their conclusion is the same as the Jabriyah’s as they believe that Allah knows what you are going to do before you do it and forces you to act to undertake what he knows your going to do, therefore he forces you to act even if you have free will.

The Fallacy in this is here:

They started the discussion with a premise which is beyond the senses i.e. its is beyond man to understand i.e. man cant comprehend what Allah knows as this is only something he can invisage, we cant even imagine it. So to build more thoughts on this would result in an doubtful thought not suitable for the Islamic belief. I.e they started to discuss the sensory inaccessible and therefore equated the unseen to man i.e. the equated Allahs Knowledge to mans actions. BIG MISTAKE.

I.e. they let the intellect free to inquire into matters that are incapable for man to comprehend.

They didn’t realise the limitations of the mind

They used logic where logic can be used, i.e. logic which is not based on a sensed reality.

Therefore I said they were in fact like the mutakalimoon because they thought in the exact same erroneous way.

The correct view

The basis of the discussion in al-Qada wa al-Qadar is not the action of man in terms of whether he created the action or Allah created it. Neither is it the will of Allah (SWT) in the sense that His will is conditional on the action of man so it must exist by this will, as the Will of Allah is something which we don’t understand, Only Allah understands this fully, but we affirm belief in it and we cant start the discussion on this basis. Neither is it the Knowledge of Allah in terms of Him knowing that man will do such and such action as the knowledge of Allah is beyond our imagination, it is not a sensed reality, but conforms to reality and therefore we cant start the conversation with this basis but we affrim belief in Allahs knowledge as it is mentioned in the Quran, nor that this action of man is written in the al-Lawh al-Mahfuz so he must act according to what has been written, because man cant sense the al-lawl al-Mahfuz and therefore he cant refer to it when deciding whether to do or not to an action

The basis of the discussion is definitely none of these things. The topic of discussion on whose basis the question of al-Qada wa al-Qadar is built is this, Is man obliged to perform an action, good or evil, or does he have a choice? And, does man have the choice to perform his action, or does he have no choice?

When discussing a topic one must realise when one can comment and how one must comment.

If one srcutinises the question of the conversation we will see that the question is about the actions of man, i.e. a reality which man can sense. One will also see that this is not addressed explicitly in the Quran and hence this question was asked by muslims does man have free chioce or no free chioce and there was a big hoo haa over it – as the answer is not clearly given. Because the answer was not clearly given people attempted to think to produce an answer but unfortunately they used evidences which are beyond the senses as starting points to the discussion and didn’t derive any definite thoughts.

As the reality being discussed (mans actions) is a reality which is sensed by the human being we can rationalise about the answer i.e. we can think in a rational manner about the answer.Quick note – many people call the muatazila rationalists when indeed if you scrutinise their way of thinking it is not rational at all – it is logical, and hence they will label anyone who rationalises about this topic muatazila when indeed they are more like the muatazila because they will start the conversation with the sensory inaccessible and build thoughts from there on.

There is no problem with man passing judgement on a sensed reality e.g. is this an apple, do pigs fly, does man have free choice as these are all within the boundaries of mans mind.

Therefore we will rationalise (quite legitimately) about mans actions and we wont start with Allah Attributes.

The person who scrutinises the actions of people sees that we live within two spheres: 1) one which we dominate, seen as the sphere that is present within the region of our conduct, and within which our actions happen absolutely by our choice; 2) the other sphere dominates us, we exist within its domain, and the that which occurs upon us within it happen without our choice, whether they originate from us or fall upon us.

The actions that fall within the sphere that dominates us, we have no choice in them or in their existence. They can be divided into two kinds: The first are those required by the law of the universe. The second are those actions which are not directly necessitated by the laws of the universe. We are not accounted for anything that occurs within this sphere and it is classified as fate (Qada) from Allah (swt).

The laws of the Universe being from Allah is fairly simple to grasp. However understanding how those things that fall upon us which are not necessitated by the universal law are Qada from Allah requires more thought.

The easiest examples for this are the accidental happenings such as the contracting of an illness, train accidents or tripping and spraining your ankle. However this area of the sphere which dominates us is not limited to accidents it also includes things we intend such as arriving at a destination, passing an exam or establishing the Khilafah. The key issue to grasp is that we only control our actions i.e. our limbs and not anything beyond this. When it comes to the examples that I mentioned such as reaching a destination, passing an exam or establishing the Khilafah we only control our actions and therefore make an attempt to achieve a goal, the result is definitively not in our control and involves complex interrelationships between people and matter, it includes many factors that are not in the control of people. When embarking upon a journey we may make an attempt to reach a destination but fail due to many factors such as the car breaking down or an accident on the motorway – so we do not definitively control whether we will arrive at our destination.

We attempt to re-establish the Khilafah but where and when we establish it is not in our control. Even though there were bloodless coup attempts in the past, the da’wa carriers dont not control the outcome.

Complex situations must be studied carefully to ascertain which aspects are actually Qada and which aspects are in peoples control, it is dangerous to generalise and label things as Qada without making this distinction. Take the example of marriage, often people label this as Qada, upon further scrutiny we would ascertain that there are elements which are in man’s control and elements outside of his control. Whether the man and the women initially meet or not is not in their control, once they have met the decision they make to agree to the marriage is their decision and is not forced upon them by Allah (swt). Even if they decide to marry whether they are able to make it to the actual wedding is not within their control.

If we do not control something then by definition it falls into the second sphere and therefore is from Allah (swt).

If something occurs upon us which we don’t control such as winning a prize or tripping and breaking a leg we can conclude that this is from Allah (swt) but is beyond the role of our minds to understand how Allah (swt) ensured that this would happen to us. It is beyond our perception to discuss how Allah does things and ensures that certain things will occur upon us without our control.

As for the sphere that man dominates, it is the sphere in which he proceeds willingly according to the system he chooses, whether it is the divine law (shar'iyah) or any other e.g. secular way of life, communistic way of life. In this sphere, actions carried out by man or befalling him occur by his will. For example, he walks, eats, drinks and travels anytime he likes, likewise he refrains from doing any of these things when he likes; he also burns with fire and cuts with a knife when he chooses; and he satisfies the instincts of procreation and ownership and the hunger of the belly as he likes. All this he performs or abstains from willingly. Therefore, man is accounted for those deeds which occur within this sphere. Thus, he is rewarded for the action which is rewardable, and he is punished for it if it is punishable. These actions have nothing to do with al-Qada or vice versa. Because man is the one who undertook them with his own will and choice. Therefore, actions of choice do not come under the subject of al-Qada.

Although we are subject to al-Qada wal Qadar this does not mean that we become fatalistic and submit ourselves to whatever is going to happen to us as we have no knowledge of that. There is a difference between Aqeeda and Hukm Shari and in issues of action we must refer to the Shariah rules as Allah (swt) has ordered us regardless of whether we control the outcome or not.

I.e. We believe that the termination of Ajal is from Allah – but this does not mean that we can kill ourselves and say we are not accountable for it as Ajal is from Allah, no we cant have this attitude. We believe Ajal is from Allah as it is part of the Aqeedah and then once accepting the Aqedah we subject ourselves to Allahs commands and refraim from suicide.

So we believe in Allah and then follow his commandments and whatever happens to us after that, which we are not in control over, we just say Alhamdulillah whether it appears good to us or bad to us as Allah knows best.

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