We Are Not Fatalists

This actually makes it sound very fatalistic: if Allah wants something, then a person can have it; and if He does not want it, it is not going to happen. That is our belief. This actually relates to the issue of qadar and destiny that comes up after point 52: the divine decree, the Pen and the Tablet. But basically, we are supposed to have some free will, because we are not fatalists; we are not Jabriyyah. Yet this is saying that we do not have any volition.

There are a number of ways of understanding this. In shāʾ Allāh, it is explained a bit further in the discussion on divine decree, in a later chapter. But for now, this much should be understood: there is no doubt — there is no doubt — that Allah (swt) has given the human being some amount of free will. How do we know that? We know it by the fact that when a person wants to move his hand voluntarily, he sees that, alḥamdulillāh, he can. There are some people who have Parkinson's disease, or other diseases, where they have an involuntary shake of the hand, and they cannot help it. There is a marked difference — there is a perceivable, a comprehensible difference — between voluntarily shaking one's hands and an involuntary shake of the hands. This basically means that there is some amount of will; there is a small window of personal will that we have. And that is why we are accountable; because if we did not have it, we would not be accountable.

But at the same time, who gave us this will? Allah (swt). He gave it to us. Every time we try to do something with our free will — every time a person even tries to move his hand — He is creating the ability at that time. This ties in with the discussion above about the knife and the fire, about it burning, and so on. It is not that Allah (swt) created this will in us and then He let it go. That is what the Muʿtazilah believe. The Muʿtazilah are actually Qadariyyah. It is worth recalling that the Muʿtazilah, the Muʿtazilites, rationalists, are actually Qadariyyah as well, because they are libertarians, in a sense. They believe that the bad acts of a servant are not created by Allah, but that the human being creates them; Allah does not create bad actions at all. That is taken up a bit more later, at point 106 and beyond — divine enablement, accountability, good and evil. That is where it comes.

But to summarise it briefly here, so that the matter is not left hanging: we do see that we have free will, and that is enough for us to be accountable. We perceive this free will. We know we can do good if we want to. We do not always feel like it, but we have to try our best; and when one asks Allah, Allah makes it easy. On the other hand, though, Allah is the Creator of everything, and He is behind everything. So really, looked at from our perspective, we do have some amount of free will; but looked at from Allah's perspective, we are actually completely under His control, and we cannot do anything about that — and we are pleased to be that way anyway.

So, looked at from Allah's perspective: He is in control of every single thing. But looked at from our perspective, we cannot say that we are forced to do this, that and the other, because we do perceive some amount of free will — though it is Allah behind that as well. So when a person wants to turn a page, Allah has given him the ability to will; but it is Allah who actually creates in him the physical ability and energy to actually do that, each time. Each time.