Fatalism has not always been alien to Muslims. A sect called the Jibirites believed that everything was “compulsion” and that freewill was an illusion.
Their belief was roundly rejected and relegated to the textbooks of our history.
For we have always believed, from the first, in the ability to effect change.
And it is this that is so dramatically demonstrated in our common history, and the history of the World and our place within it.
Indeed it is our unique belief that spurs us to seek, and effect change for the better.
When we juxtaposition free will with qadr’Allah (predestination, that the pen has written and ink has dried), we find no contradiction there when we seek to understand them on the basis of the effect that they should have on each of us.
There is no free will without responsibility (no soul shall be given to bear a burden greater than its capabilities- al Quran), and qadr’Allah simply frees us from the burdens of our past. That our pasts cannot determine our future and present selfs, it is our choices that do that.
A true saying of the Messenger (saw) informs us that if all the World’s men and Jinn gathered together in a single place to harm you, then none could save except as the Most Gracious wills.
That is qadr’Allah.
And that is the fearlessness incumbent on one who truly believes, which is tempered by our understanding in the true nobility and universality of the religion.
That your success and your failure, your living and your dying, is ultimately because the Most Gracious willed it so.
And to fail by His hand is no lesser an achievement than to succeed by His leave, and sometimes even more so.
That we are not afraid of fear itself, that the risk of failure cannot curb our drive to succeed and try again, and keep on trying.
Indeed God’s words are true and cannot be doubted, just as His promise is true and only a fool would doubt them.
And yet on another level it is as if both Hell and Heaven were created as a boon, and a blessing, for us- that He wishes for us the best and truest of conducts- so that we might fear the impeding judgment and be both true and just, even when it is against ourselves or even our people.
And maybe that is why they are mentioned in ar-Rahman.
They are our spur to be true, and just amongst others. And for that we should be very grateful.
And a man never spoke truer who asked, “O God, save me from the Hellfire which is true, and enter me into the Garden of Paradise, which is true. “
And it is this that causes Islam to stand out as being no ideology; no simple idea that drags men to the extremes of behaviour; because we are always balanced between two.
(The fear of )Hell and (the desire for) Heaven.
Freedom and Responsibility.
Ability and the acceptance of our ultimate inability.
For from the very start we are forced to be balanced between two poles.
The declaration of faith is fIrst denial and then affirmation, an affirmation which of and by itself is not belief.
Declaring that Allah exists, is of and by itself not faith, for this was the affirmation of the pagan Arabs, descendants of Ismail, before the coming of the Messenger.
And “there is no other god”, or “there are no gods” is at first a declaration of our ability, that there are no deities whose reciprocity we have to appeal to- that we are both able, capable and free.
And then once you have freed yourself from the myriad false deities that cloud the psyche of man, then to recognise, in earnest, the complexity and intricacy of the Universe and our place within it- to begin to truly appreciate the majesty of the Most Gracious.
A marvelling that can only lead to an abandonment that marks the beginning of peace within Islam.
So even at first there is this tension within our very declaration of faith, that points to both our ability and capability and then to our abandonment in the realisation of the actuality that we are ultimately unable - unless the Most Gracious helps us.
Finding culmination in our six beliefs, of which qadr’Allah is the pinnacle.
Which does not make us fatalists.
Contrarily it makes us champions.
Being cogent, responsible and able - and then they seek only His smile, that He might boast in that high company about them. Because they know full well the risks and are willing to abandon themselves to them in His care whilst taking every conceivable precaution.
They are the ones that hate the status quo.
They are the ones who will leave no stone unturned in the search for a better World.
They are the ones who show that it can be done.
And these could even be our doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, counter assistants and concerned neighbours that would daily brave our hospitals and our streets.
