The Teacher Who Guessed the Grades

A few more points. The divine tablet: Allah had the pen write on it, 50,000 years before creating the world, everything that was to occur. And then we do things. So it was written, for instance, that a certain class would be held, and that so-and-so would attend it, away from their rest time at home. All of that was written: that they would, with their free will, come to that programme. They come to the programme, and it goes in accordance with what is written. Does that not mean that we are, again, forced to do what is in the divine tablet, or what is written for us? Part of that is then transcribed and allotted to us when we are in the embryonic stage.

Of course, the reality of all of this is known to Allah. But one explanation that is given is that it is like a teacher who has taught his class for two years, for instance, or a year, and has got to know the capabilities of each student. Test time is coming up. He takes a piece of paper and puts a speculative grade next to each name: he thinks this one is going to get this, and this one this, and this one this, and this one this. He puts it away and goes on vacation. The children take their tests. They get their grades. He comes back after vacation, matches the two, compares the two. A lot of them are the same; others are very close, very, very, very close. How did he know? Does he know the future? No: it is out of knowing his people, knowing their capabilities, that he is able to get close. When it is Allah who is being spoken of, who created us, who designed us, who knows of everything in the absolute sense, then there is no mistake there. He knows what we are going to do.

It is like this, too. Sometimes certain thoughts play in our minds. Say we see a dream about something. It is abstract, not reality, just imaginary. We have seen a beautiful dream of getting married to somebody. Then we wake up and think: well, it is only a dream. But mā shāʾ Allāh, two months down the line, we actually get married to that person. The dream comes true. Why? Could we tell the future? These are things that can happen to us, where dreams come true and thoughts become realities. So why, with Allah, the Creator of the world, the Creator of these thoughts, the Creator of the human being, the Creator of intellect and mind and dreams, why can He not tell the future in this absolute sense?

So, because He knows what each individual is going to do with their free will, He told the pen to write it that way. As for the way the pen wrote, Imam Abū Ḥanīfah makes it very clear. He says that the pen did not write in a way that said: he will have to do this, and he will have to do this, as a kind of forced instruction. Rather, it is a narrative; it is a description of what will happen. So when we do what we do with our free will, it goes in accordance with what the divine tablet says, because Allah knew beforehand what we were going to do with our free will. That gives us some more understanding of this. Again, Allah is the only one who knows best about these things, but at least this gives some settlement.