From: RBNXHS@ROHVM1.BITNET
Subject: free will and predestination
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Originator: Mughal@Romeo.Caltech.Edu (Asim Mughal -Moderator)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 03:49:00 GMT


[Postmarked: Date: 24 Jul 92   16:04 EDT ]

From:       "David Budd" <ZLSIIDA@fs1.mcc.ac.uk>  wrote ---
------     You went on to an exposition of
the nafs, rooh, etc, which I felt was a bit off the point.  ....
Again: if it is known what action you will take, even if it feels to
you that you chose your action, YOU DID NOT, otherwise how could the
action you would take have been known beforehand?   ......
                        With Islam
I seem to keep coming across areas where the rules seem to say
"You're not allowed to question this".

Peace - Dave -----------------
===========
In response to your reply:

I brought the concept of human flesh, nafs and rooh merely to make the
connection between the outwardly appearance with the inner dimensions
(unseen) that comprise the *whole* man. Actions of human beings are
byproduct of this complex relation.  I think you failed to understand
this connection.

	In order to clarify the point on predestination, let me provide a
simile. In fact examples are sometimes the best
way to explain things (The Qur'an also talks a lot about examples.):
	Suppose there is an experienced
doctor who has seen a patient. From the symptoms he understood that
the patient is going to die within a month. The doctor wrote his
predicition in his note book. Now the patient dies according  to the
prediction. However, the patient does not die because the doctor wrote
the prediction- the patient dies because of the his serious illness. Can
one blame the doctor for knowing the future about his patient? Surely,
not. The doctor can only be blamed if he did not prescribe the right
medicine that could cure the sickness. Whether the patient takes the
medicine or not, that is the patient's choice (the patient has
every right to reject any medicine, as long as he is not insane or in
a coma).  Even before the fatal sickness of the patient, the doctor
might have suggested the right kind of foods, medicines, exercises, etc.
for better health and mind. But if the patient had always neglected
those warnings and got involved in matters which are ruinous to his
health, and at the end dies as a sick man, should the doctor be
made accountable for the death of the patient? Obviously, not.

Allah, similarly, had prescribed the right medicine (guidance) for
humanity. Even when human beings are unthankful for the bounties
He has provided, He does not stop providing the provisions for the
wretched, ungrateful creature. (In our understanding, this prescribed
medicine is : al Islam.) Allah has also provided human beings with
the intellects, the power of reasoning, logics to make up his mind
and accept the true guidance (medicine). But if the person, out of
his selfish desires, cravings of the nafs, rejects that prescribed
medicine and becomes sick, why should Allah be responsible for this
sick human beings' health? In Islam, we believe that the Mercy
of Allah supersedes His Anger. As such, human beings have been given
the chance to take His prescribed medicine even to the last moment.
And if he takes that medicine, Allah brings him to His mercy, and
he is cured of the disease.  How many times Allah has tried to
guide humanity by providing examples, similes, by asking the patient
to take lessons from the past (e.g., other patients' lives), by looking
into the nature. Yet, man ignores His pleas, His guidance, His pres-
cription. Then he says, "why should I be accountable for the action
I commit. You knew I am gonna go hell and I did just that in order to
get there as you had predestined for me." No, Dave, this is self-
deception. A murderer needs an alibi to avoid his involvement in the
fatal crime. Just as a murderer cannot deny the responsibilities of
commiting the murder (e.g., by saying that well it was predestined
that the person be killed) so you cannot hide behind those lame
execuses that you did not have the option or the free choice. Just
as the patient had the choice to take the medicine, and the would-be
killer not to kill the victim, you also do have the choice for the
action or the life-style you choose. Nothing more, nothing less. God's
knowing about the actions of His creation in advance, does not make
Him any less Merciful than the doctor was to his patient. As a matter
of fact, in Islam, we believe that Allah's love for human beings is
much more than the latter's love for themselves or their children.

	An entity not knowing the future can not be Allah. Time is subservient
to Allah. Allah's capacity is not bound by time. Thus He knows
future more clear than we know our past.
Consider the case: My brother knows I ate an apple
yesterday. Is his knowledge of eating apple the cause of my eating apple
yesterday? He might say he knows only after an event occurs. To Allah,
the future is as clear as the past. Thus He knows the event before its
happening. Then how His knowledge of future is responsible for the
occurence of the events?

	One may also ask what's the purpose of working, since what is written
will happen? Only thing is that I do not know what will happen to me. If
I'm doing good perhaps that's why Heaven is written up for me. Oppositely,
if I am doing bad, perhaps that's why Hell is written up for me.

	Allah has clearly declared that Man's reward will depend on his (man's)
faith and actions. Allah will not do a slight injustice in rewarding faith
and actions. Therefore, it is very important to have faith and do good.

As to your last remark, I totally disagree if someone says that you
cannot ask question on Islamic issues. You can. Islam is based on
reasonings, intellectual queries, not blind immitation. It is not
the religion based on following the unscientific, illogical
concepts like 1+1+1= 1 (i.e., Triune god is One God), a mathematical
absurdity? Ours is not the irrational religion which says our first
ancestor roamed over the earth only about 6000 years ago. The Qur'an,
unlike any religious books on earth, had constantly challenged human
beings to use their intellects, scientific knowledges, history of
human civilizations to grasp the truth. And it has challenged humanity
for the last 14 centuries to find any contradictions within it. Today,
we live in an era, where humanity has progressed more than any time
in our human history in scientific achievements. People are no longer
satisfied with irrational arguments or concepts which make it binding
on the adherents to merely digest the tablet of 'beliefs', no matter
how stupid those beliefs are. If the Qur'an had been anything but
pure then one could have found lot of unscientific things within it. But
nothing like that has been found, even by the Western scholars whose
upbringings were not Islamic. Read, "The Bible, the Qur'an and Science"
by Dr. Maurice Bucaille (American Trust Publications). Read "What is
the Origin of Man" by the same author (Seghers Publishers, Paris).
When did you come to learn about the universe being a result of Big
Bang and that it is expanding? Only recently, right? But the Qur'an
mentions it (for the last 14 centuries). Read it. Yes, most of us
are not knowledgable enough (my profession is not theology either, I
am an engineer) to answer all the questions that you or others pose.
But definitely our scholars can answer all the questions that non-
Muslims can ask. Unfortunately, English is not the language of our most
renowned scholars (and it has never been). Their writings are in
Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, etc. If you care to get the answers, you don't
have to visit the orient, visit any Mosque in UK and ask to talk to
an 'Alim (scholar), he would Inshallah be able to answer your question.
In the meantime, please, read the books I suggested.

I hope you find the truth you are searching. Peace - H. Siddiqui.