Ques: I think I recently got a bit confused about how our belief concerning human free-will and Destiny/Decree/Qadr of Allah has to be.
1) In the following I typed up how I understand this belief, is it correct?
Allah knows everything and created everything. (i.e. he knows if we’ll be in paradise or hell and created the universe, us and our deeds)
He gave us a free will so that we may chose to do good or evil actions, but at the end everything we do can ONLY happen if Allah allowed (willed) it. In order to give us the possibility to enact upon our choices he creates our actions. So He is the creator of all our deeds but the moral responsibility for these deeds still remains ours.
2) Is it suffisant to affirm and acceppt without delving deeper in this matter the following: (If something missing or wrong please correct me)
– Allah is all-knowing
– Allah created everything (incl. us and our deeds)
– Nothing happens except by the will/permission of Allah
– Humans have a free will to chose bad action or good action
Ans: Assalamu Alaikum.
Remember these..
– Allah is the creator of all our deeds.
– But we do them by our own will.
– Being a creator is not bad, like the creator/inventor of Atom. He will be respected throughout the times. But he who uses Atom incorrectly will be blamed.
– Allah gives us complete power to choose between right and wrong.
– Its not that everything we do, do by His permission. Rather, it is, that everything we do, is known by Him. Like a doctor, he knows what reaction will happen to his patient after taking certain dose. So, knowing anything doesn’t mean controlling anything.
– Even though we do everything (good and bad) by our own will, and even they r created by Allah, we can just attribute the good deeds to Allah, not the bad deeds. The bad deeds will be attributed to Shaitan or to ourselves. Allah teaches us this. He says:
And that we know not whether evil is meant for those who are on earth or whether their Lord means to bring them good. (72:10)
See that the evil is said in passive voice, attributing it to someone unknown. Where the good is attributed directly to Allah.
Finally, I remember my teacher quoting a quote from Ali 
. He used to say about Qadr:
طريق مظلم لا تسلكه
سر من اسرار الله فلا تفتشه
It is a deep sea, don’t drown in it.
It is a dark road, don’t go through it.
It is a secret of Allah, don’t try to investigate it.
So, whatever is said in Qur’an or Hadith, we should stick on it. We should not go into deep study about it. The hadith mentioned in Mishkat, that Prophet (SAW) used to be angry when he saw people talking about Qadr, teaches us this.
And Allah knows best.
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Answered by Yousuf
Sunniforum, 9th May ’09
