Islam for Muslims
- THE FAITH OF MUSLIMS
- GOOD DEEDS IN PERSONAL LIFE
- GOOD DEEDS IN SOCIAL LIFE
God’s Power in Shaping Destiny
Introduction: Your faith in Omnipotent God extends to your belief in destiny or predestination. If you take God as the Almighty, you cannot put your limited human power in a relation of competition with unlimited power of God under pretention that you are able to do anything you want. Instead, you need to realize the fact that you will try your best to achieve something but the result may not always match your expectation. Any gap between your efforts and attainment levels may be explained by what is known as your destiny. Belief in destiny will open your door to double benefits: (i) you will see no basis for showing your vain arrogance and (ii) you will not blame anyone for any downturn of your luck.
Quranic Documents: In simple terms, predestination means the unfolding of the reality or events (good or bad) that affect your life in spite of your hard efforts to enhance your wellbeing. There are several verses (presented below) that form the foundation of the concept of predestination. (i) Everything has a “limited quantity or proportion” (65:3). For example, your income or fortune is restricted by destiny “in due and ascertainable measure” (15:21) even if you may desire it in larger or unlimited quantity. (ii) Your help or harm from God may not come before an “appointed time” (10:49). (iii) Nothing will happen to us “except what God has decreed for us” (9:51). (iv) No one dies without His approval since our “life-term is fixed as by (symbolic) writing” (3:145). (v) No misfortune can happen “on earth or in your souls but is recorded in a decree before (God) brings it into existence” (57:22).
Now follows a discussion about the true meaning of predestination along with an assessment of relative importance of the roles of God and human beings in shaping it.
(A) Events Partially Controllable by Man: These are types of events (such as making money, gaining knowledge, earning a degree etc.) that require necessary human efforts. Success in making such events favorable to your better destiny, hinges on two conditions (i) your human efforts as a necessary condition and (ii) God’s choice or role as a sufficient condition. At this point, we need to make it clear by means of a metaphor that even if God pre-decided everything like the limited boundary of a football field, it is still important for the players to put up their best games to win the competition.
Real Meaning of Predestination: By putting together the dual roles of both man and God, what man achieves as final outcome is known as destiny or predestination by definition. For example, if two equally qualified candidates ‘A’ and ‘B’ make job searches with their utmost seriousness, the fate decided by God may favor ‘A’ with a higher paying job compared to ‘B’. However, ‘B’ can shift to his better destiny in next round of events if and when he gets a better job through harder efforts acceptable to God. In another hypothetical example, if you cancelled a pre-planned trip to a land due to outbreak of an epidemic, then you moved from one destiny (whatever could happen from your trip) to another destiny (probably safety from that disease), both subject to the approval of God. This summarizes the definition of predestination as the ultimate result that you may get from your hard efforts for something.
Human Role as a Necessary Condition: Islam rules out the fatalist notion that your reliance on God will mean He will do everything for you while you will remain inactive. Instead, the concept of destiny makes your effort a necessary or essential complement to God’s desire. The sufficient condition theory linked to God’s role suggests the natural consequence that in an academic class two equally brilliant students ‘X’ and ‘Y’ making same serious efforts cannot both secure the first place at the same time, as one must be second to other. In earlier example involving ‘A’ and ‘B’ regarding their job search, the role of God in favoring ‘A’ with better destiny through a high paying job is a decisive or sufficient condition. This means both candidates must play their human part (ex: sending application, sit down for interview etc.) toward their desired goal of getting a good job, pending final outcome in God’s hands. Your effort in this case is the necessary condition as ordinarily God will not bring you a job if you become totally effortless. God “does not change the condition of a people if they do not strive to change it themselves. Man can have nothing but what he strives for” (13:11; 53:39).
No Miraculous Help on Earth: For your earthly life, it is not God’s policy to provide you with automatic supply of basic needs like food, clothes etc. unless and until you put in efforts for that. This policy will, however, be different in the Paradise of Afterlife where you will get every cherished things ranging from tasty food to cozy bed available before you even move fingers to get them. The Prophet therefore recommended for hard work, instead of sitting on your hands, relying solely on predestination.
Reliance Boosts God’s Cooperation: Though reliance on God (‘tawakkul’) is a sign of good faith, it does not give you any scope to avoid the reality. For example, fire will burn your fingers if introduced to it, according to the natural law of God. By accepting the reality on the ground, you have to complete your human part by trying your level best toward your desired goal, while the other part in shaping your destiny will be completed by God. You can however influence the decision of God in your favor by showing your strong desire as well as making appeal for particular goal. This conforms to the Hadith suggesting that “dua’ can change your original destiny which then can be rewritten as your final (revised) destiny which, however, nobody except God knows. For example, if He responds to your prayer by upgrading your annual income from $50K to 100K, you can never know that your original unrevealed destiny was $50K.
God Not Blameworthy for Destiny: It appears from above that in the outcome of fate, no blame is attributable to God, as He does not force you to do bad or prevent you from doing good. He has given you freedom of will as well as the power of judgment to make a right decision. Given these facts, whatever you decide to do (good or bad) and however hard you try to do will ultimately have a bearing on the quality of your destiny. We cannot rightfully blame the All-knowing God simply for “knowing (in advance) what is before them (future) and what was behind them (past)” (22:76). This is comparable to a metaphoric example that a person is able to vision a wider surrounding from mountaintop than being on ground level.
God’s Role as Sufficient Condition: After your best possible human role in the form of maximum possible efforts and ‘dua’ is targeted toward your cherished goal of fate, the remaining part is played by God as He gives finishing touch to your destiny. God may give due consideration to the seriousness of your effort toward a particular direction of destiny. Yet an occasional gap may exist between what you desire with backing of your efforts and what you ultimately gain in the form of destiny. Such ill-fated gap may require your patience to avoid frustration in default. Nonetheless, this gives flexibility to God to do whatever He likes to make His Almighty and Absolute attributes meaningful.
(B) Destiny beyond Human Control: Different from the above type, there are some events including births, deaths, “extension or shortening of life” (35:11) etc. are totally controlled by God, leaving no room for human roles. For example, the fate of a family may be worsened by the death of its bread earner or improved by the birth of a talented and potentially rich child. Likewise, the fortune of a nation is influenced negatively by a devastating earthquake or positively by a discovery of oil mines etc. These are some examples that tell much about limitations of human powers contrasting with the absolutism of divine powers. Sometimes adverse destiny through natural disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes, COVID-19 etc. may result from your sinful actions, serving the divine purpose of handing out justice. While their prevention is not much in your hands, still you may be able to influence God toward favorable outcome by means of good deeds, repentance and ‘dua’.
Conclusion: It appears from the above that the meaning of destiny can not be separated from obligation of human efforts. In other words, destiny means all what ultimately happens to you despite your maximum efforts and prayers to improve your fortune.