A Knife Cuts, Fire Burns

This is a point that needs some discussion. A knife cuts; fire burns. How are burning and the fire to be understood? What is the relationship between the two? Even among the Christians there are these differences of opinion about how these things actually work. There is one group — the philosophers, a lot of them — who actually believe that Allah gave the ability to the knife to cut. That is the inherent quality of a knife, and that is what it is going to do when it is used in the correct way; and to the fire, to burn. A lot of Christians believe this as well, and this is the Muʿtazilī belief: initially it is Allah who provided that capability in the knife to cut, and in the fire to burn. Then He let it free. So now, every time a knife is used, it cuts with its own God-given power.

Obviously, there are some people who do not believe that God gave that; they think that is just its function. The fire: that is its function; it was not God-given; it is just the way it evolved, or whatever it may be. But those who hold the first opinion mentioned are a bit better off than that, because at least they say Allah provided that in the first place. But that is not the opinion of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah. There is nothing that is out of Allah's control, and this would be out of Allah's control: the knife continuing to cut now, the fire burning, and Allah having no control over it. There are some Christians who believe that, yes, it has its own free rein now — the fire will always burn — but Allah can sometimes step in and not let it do that.

Alḥamdulillāh, Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah: their belief is that Allah permits it to cut each time. Each time, it gets permission from Allah (swt) to do that. Allah knows about it, and He permits it to do that; and the majority of the time it does that, because that is just the nature of the world, and that is the way Allah (swt) set up the system in the world. Likewise with fire. But when He wants, He can have the most intense fire not burn — its intensity, its thermal intensity, completely diminished, despite the whole facade of a massive fire, as in the time of Ibrāhīm (peace be upon him):

Kūnī bardan wa salāman ʿalā Ibrāhīm. And likewise Ibrāhīm's knife: try as he might, with all the force that he wanted, turning his son the other way around, it just would not cut — because Allah, the central command, had prohibited it from cutting at that point in time. So each time it is given permission to cut, each time. That is the Allah in whom we want to believe; that is the Allah whom we worship. That is our Allah; that is our concept of Allah (swt).