Most Read in the Category of Belief in Qada (Decree) and Qadar (Destiny)

Qadar is Allah’s knowing of everything in pre-eternity, what happened and what will happen whether good or bad from pre-eternity to past eternity, their time, place and characteristics, and His ordaining and determining them.

Qada is His creation of things and events when their time is due based on His pre-eternal knowledge and ordaining.

Allah created the whole universe and everything in it – whether living or non-living – based on a program. Allah knows everything that will happen in the universe, He also knows the actions of the tiniest particle in detail. His knowledge covers everything.   

The unique system and wonderful order seen in the universe shows that Allah planned it knowingly and that he creates everything based on that plan when their time is due.

The program that Allah made before He created the universe in pre-eternity is called qadar. His application of that program when its time is due is called  qada.

Then, belief in qada and qadar means to believe without doubt that Allah knows everything, that He programmed everything in pre-eternity and that He creates things and events based on that knowledge and program when their time is due.

Allah knows all of our deeds and actions whether good or bad and creates them when their time is due. The fact that he knows and creates them does not free us from responsibility because Allah gave us the will, preference, ability and freedom of distinguishing between the good and the bad, the useful and the evil and choosing one of them. This preference and will in man is called “partial free will”. Man can distinguish between the good and the bad, the useful and the evil by using that ability. Then, Allah creates that deed based on man’s preference.  It means, Allah creates the good and bad deeds of his slave not by forcing him to do good deeds or bad deeds but based on the preference he makes using his will. If the slave prefers the good deed, Allah creates the good deed; if he prefers the bad deed, Allah creates the bad deed... Then, the responsibility lies on the person who makes the preference.

In short, it can be said that it is Allah who creates the bad and the good in the deeds of His slaves but it is man who deserves it. Therefore, the responsibility lies on man.

No. The fact that Allah knows His slave will do something has no forcing effect on the deeds of that person. Let us explain it with an example:

Suppose we know that there will be a lunar eclipse one year later as a result of the astronomic researches. When the lunar eclipse takes place when its time is due, does it mean that the lunar eclipse took place because we knew it. No, because the lunar eclipse did not take place since we knew it; it took place depending on the causes of the eclipse. We discovered those causes one year earlier thanks to scientific researches. The lunar eclipse did not take place because we said there would be a lunar eclipse. 

Similarly, Allah knows beforehand whether his slave will use his will to do a good or bad deed, and he determines and ordains it. He creates it based on the choice of his slave when its time is due. Allah knows it because the slave will want to do it. It is not that the slave wants to do it and does it because Allah knows it. 

Then, the fact that Allah knows in pre-eternity the deeds that His slave does using his will not free a person of responsibility because the fact that Allah knows does not force the slave and does not eliminate his will and freedom by any means.  

Belief in qada and qadar is the greatest remedy for man’s desperation, hopelessness and grief. Thanks to his belief in qadar, man sees the troubles and misfortunes he faces as the preordainment of Allah and consoles himself. Man consents to His preordainment. He feels that he is under the control of the Almighty Lord. Since he knows that troubles and misfortunes come from Allah, he takes shelter only with Him and prays only Him in order to be saved. He thinks that the trouble he is suffering will be kaffarah and a reason for forgiveness for him, and shows patience and endurance.

Therefore, the following adage is well-known.

“He who believes in qadar becomes free of grief.”

Belief in qadar relieves the soul of man of burdens as heavy as the world because man is in relation with the whole universe. His aims and desires, his ideals and targets are endless. However, his power, will and freedom are limited and constricted. Sometimes, he cannot afford to realize even one in one thousand of his aims, desires, thoughts and ideas. In this case, the unrealized desires, ideals and thoughts of man keep him under pressure, crush his soul, and wring his heart and conscience. They make him hopeless. For such a man, belief in qadar is the greatest source of consolation, enthusiasm and effort, and a gleam of light; it is also a strong ground that can carry the heavy burden on him. 

As we have mentioned before, qadar saves man from proud and conceit. It prevents the soul and ego from making man conceited and deviate from the right path, and making him like a Pharaoh. It makes man modest and humble.

It is Allah who creates the good and the bad. This belief is an inseparable part of belief in qadar.

However, the good things that are created in the world are essential; the bad things are details. The good things are like the products; the bad things are like the waste material.

The bad is created in order to show the truth and the beauty of the good, as it is expressed in the rule,  “everything is known (understood) through its opposite.” For instance, if there were no diseases, it would be impossible to know what a great bounty health is. If there was no darkness, the value of the light is not understood. If there were no bad things, the merit and superiority of the good things would not be understood.

If the bad things, which are weak in comparison to the good, had not been created in the world, the nature and beauty of the good would to be seen fully, and the levels, ranks and types of the good things would not be understood. Thus, many good things would not exist because a small bad thing was not created; therefore, a great amount of evil and harm would appear.

Besides, the consideration of the bad and the good usually changes based on the understanding and viewpoint of a person. It is possible that man sometimes regards something evil and ugly for himself but actually it is quite good for him. However, since man is egoist and he gives importance to appearance, he may label everything that seems contrary to his interest at first as evil. Let us give an example to explain it: When a person has an important thing to do and misses a plane, it seems as a great evil to him because his interest was harmed and his business was hampered. However, let us suppose that the plane crashed. In that case, that person will start to think how good the thing that he thought as evil is for him.

It means many things that may appear as evil at first may be good in the end. Ibrahim Hakkı of Erzurum explains the issue very well in the following poem:

“God transforms evil to good

Do not think He does something else

The clever person watches it

Let us see what God will do

Whatever He does, He does well...”

To say that evil and bad things take place outside the knowledge and will of Allah means to claim that there is a limit to the attributes of Knowledge, Will and Power of Allah. It necessitates a deficiency in the divinity; it is also contrary to the fact that the universe was created based on a plan and program.

Therefore, the issue that the good and the bad come from Allah and that they were created by Allah is included in the belief of qada and qadar; it was deemed necessary to deal with it again and to confirm it.

An old man asked Hazrat Ali:

– Did our walking toward Damascus (Battle of Siffin) take place as a result of Allah’s qada and qadar? Tell us about it!

Hazrat  Ali gave the following answer:

– I swear by Allah who makes plants and grass grow and gives life to creatures and I say wherever we go and wherever we stay is as a result of Allah’s qada and qadar.

– Then, we work in vain; it looks as if there is no reward for us...

– O old man! Allah gave you great rewards while you were going. He also gave you rewards while you were returning because you were not forced to do it. You did it of your own accord.

– Did qada and qadar not lead us?

– Alas! You think that qada stuck to you and qadar was fixed to you. If it had been like that, reward and punishment would have been annulled. There would have been no need for the threat of punishment, orders and bans. Allah would not have punished those who committed sins and would not have praised those who did good deeds. The one who did good deeds would not have been worthy of praise more than the one who did bad deeds. The one who did bad deeds would not have been worthy of condemnation more that the one who did good deeds. Those nonsense words are the words of idolaters, the armies of Satan, false witnesses and the blind who do not see the truth. They are the fatalists and fire-worshippers of this ummah. Allah gave people commands by making them free to choose. He prohibited some things to keep people away from them. He ordered easy things. He did not make people rebel by force or obey by pulling them. He did not send prophets in vain. He did not create the sky, the world, and the things between them in vain. “Such ideas are the thoughts of unbelievers; shame on them; Hell is awaiting them.”

Thereupon, they asked again:

– Then what is qada and qadar that leads us?

Hazrat Ali said:

– It is the order and decree of Allah; and he read the following verse:

“Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him.”

The old man stood up happily and said:

– You are a person that one can expect the consent of Allah by obeying you. You clearly explained a fine issue of our religion that we could not understand. May Allah give you the reward of it.”

Belief in qada and qadar is actually a fine question showing the limits of belief and relating to the state and conscience of a person. By believing in qadar and that the good and the bad are from Allah, a believer attributes everything, even his soul and deeds to Allah. In that case, the partial free will is in question lest he should evade responsibility. It says, “You are doing it using your wish and will, then you are responsible.” Man may attribute the good deeds that he does based on his partial free will to his soul but qadar will stand before him and say, “Know your place. Do not go too far. It is Allah who does, creates, preordains and wills.”

As it is seen, belief in qadar is included among the fundamentals of faith in order to protect the soul from pride and conceit, and partial free will is  included among the fundamentals of faith in order to prevent man to from evading responsibility and liability.

The opposite of it, that is, man’s sticking to qadar in order to evade responsibility and man’s sticking to partial free will in order to feel proud of the good deeds he does is contrary to the wisdom behind belief in qadar.