You Can't Guide Whom You Will

The biggest example of "Allah guides whom He wishes" is the uncle of the Prophet (peace be upon him):

Innaka lā tahdī man aḥbabta: you can't guide whom you will. Wallāhu yahdī man yashāʾ: and Allah guides whom He wills.

Wa ammā Thamūdu fa-hadaynāhum. Guidance has two meanings. One means to show somebody the way, and let them adopt it or not adopt it — as with the Thamūd; but they chose blindness over it. They decided not to adopt it.

This word yaʿṣim comes from the word ʿiṣmah, and that has been defined as malakatun taḥmilu ṣāḥibahā ʿalā ijtināb al-maʿāṣī maʿa al-tamakkuni minhā: it is a special faculty, or a special ability, that Allah provides, which encourages the person to avoid sins despite having the ability to commit them. So it is not that the person is stripped of that ability; it is just this ability to overcome the urge to sin. And may Allah (swt) grant us protection from sins.

People, when it relates to Allah (swt), are in one of two situations. Either they are under the mercy of Allah, in which all the good things are happening to them; or they are under the wisdom of Allah (swt). It cannot be beyond that. This basically means that even when a person thinks it is the worst thing that is happening in his life, there is a wise purpose behind it, which sometimes we realise later on. It might be to take us away from our sins; it might be to raise our status; it may be to protect us from some other greater impending danger, or impending calamity. And people shift between the two sometimes. Sometimes a person is under the circle of raḥmah, or the shower of raḥmah; sometimes they are tested. There are different positions.

Wa kulluhum yataqallabūna fī mashīʾatihi bayna faḍlihi wa ʿadlihi.

That is exactly the point: all of them vacillate in His providence between His grace and His justice. Sometimes they are in this; sometimes they are in that.