One of the Articles of Islam (Rukun Islam) is the belief in predestination (qada and qadar). This has always been an area that was of great interest to me. Even after reading a few verses of the Quran and hadiths together with their commentaries, I was still unable to understand the full concept of qadar. I even managed to get my hands on a book from Brunei that solely focused on this Article of Islam - “Manhaj ‘Aqidah Ahli Al-Sunnah Wa Al-Jama’ah Dalam Memahami Qada’ & Qadar” by Dr. Basri Bin Ibrahim Al Hassani Al Azhari. I’ve read some of the pages, but the malay..wow..the malay got a bit too complicated for me to read it leisurely. Book has accumulated dust, but I shall take it out from the shelves to look for that one hadith thatis  going to be relevant to what shall follow.

Abu Abd al-Rahman Abdullah bin Mas’ud r.a., reported: Rasulullah S.A.W., the most truthful, the most trusted, told us:

“Verily the creation of any one of you takes place when he is assembled in his mother’s womb; for forty days he is as a drop of fluid, then it becomes a clot for a similar period. Thereafter, it is a lump looking like it has been chewed for a similar period. Then an angel is sent to him, who breathes the ruh (spirit) into him. This Angel is commanded to write Four decrees: that he writes down his provision (rizq), his life span, his deeds, and whether he will be among the wretched or the blessed.

I swear by Allah – there is no God but He – one of you may perform the deeds of the people of Paradise till there is naught but an arm’s length between him and it, when that which has been written will outstrip him so that he performs the deeds of the people of the Hell Fire; one of you may perform the deeds of the people of the Hell Fire, till there is naught but an arm’s length between him and it, when that which has been written will overtake him so that he performs the deeds of the people of Paradise and enters therein.”

[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

So there’s all this hadith, but I still had a question – if it’s already written whether we would end up in hell or paradise, is there any possibilty of changing it? I’ve been sitting on this question for almost a year, and you know what, I finally got my answers ! Masya Allah. You have no idea the degree of excitement and euphoria I am feeling right now. I think I could BURST!

Lemme start from the beginning…

Today marked the first day of our Islamic Awareness Week. The only thing that I look foward to are, of course, the lectures. I can never get tired of attending Islamic lectures. For those who may know me, they’d know that I’d even be willing to go to ‘alien territory’ alone just to attend a lecture. Anyway, today’s lecture was on ‘Who Is Allah?’ by Jalal Ibn Sa’eed (if you google him, you’ll find stuff on him and his vids). When I saw the lecture topic,  I though, “Ouh! Ouh! This should be good! Getting back to the basics by getting to know God”.  As much as I would like to talk about the cool things he mentioned throughout the lecture, I’m going to try to keep to the topic, i.e. on Qadar.

Somewhere between his humorous analogies and thought provoking questions, he mentioned briefly on predestination. He said that it is actually a simple concept that isn’t that difficult to comprehend. In a nutshell, every single thing has been written in the Lauhul Mahfuz 50,000 years ago. And 50,000 years ago, the concept of free will was also mentioned. So all actions may have already been written, yet we were given free will to choose which actions to do. For instance, if there was a pen on the table, we could either choose to take the pen or just leave it on the table.  Allah knows what we’re about to do in every situation, but this knowledge is not the cause as to why we behave in specific ways. So predestination doesn not mean that we are compelled or forced to behave in particular ways. It merely means that Allah KNOWS what we do every single time. If it still isn’t clear why this is so, I’ll get back to this point later on.

Ok, I understood what he said, but that one year old question suddenly popped back into my head and still remained unanswered. At the end of the lecture, I had the opportunity to personally ask him this question I had concerning qada and qadar. I asked him, “There’s a hadith saying that it has also been written as to whether we will end up in hell or paradise. So is there some degree of possibility of changing this fate? Maybe by the use of free will?”. Guess what he said? There is 100% possibility of changing this.  100%!! Through doa and good deeds and all the things that have been mentioned in the Quran and sunnah, we CAN change the fate that was blown into us when were 40 days old in our mommy’s womb.  ALL of us can be the people of Jannah! I think I was confused with the fact that EVERYTHING was already written might actually influence us in what we do, and where we will end up in the dunia and in the akhirah. But no. This isn’t the way we’re suppose to interpret this concept. No God is worth worshipping if his knowledge is limited. But Allah… Allah is al A’lim. The All Knowing. So it is only natural and expected for Allah to know about every single thing that He has created. Allahu Akhbar. Look at the beauty, perfection, and  exaltedness of our Lord. So Who is more worthy of our love, worship, and devotion other than Allah?