11. Submitting Oneself to Destiny, Good or Evil?

Everything is written, maktoub, we can do nothing. Generally, the will of Allah is thought to be like the application of a pre-written program, in the way of a book or, as we could say nowadays, of a computer program. Certain Muslim sages would like to speak as Christians do, associating the notions of human free will and the omniscient Will of God. But they hit against several suras of the Koran that affirm predestination, which is one of the principles of Muslim belief [1]. We can but accomplish what Allah has written for us (Sura “The Repentance” 9, 51). A man may be (well) guided by Allah, but also the reverse: Allah can equally lead him astray, and then he is lost (Sura “The Wall of A’raf” 7, 178-179).

A famous Hadith says this: ‘[Into the embryo in the womb of his mother] the angel breathes the vital spirit and ordains four prescribed words: his subsistence, the end of his life, his actions, and his happiness or misery. I swear on Allah, outside of which there are no other gods, that the one who acts with the people of paradise even to be so close to them as the distance of an arm, will be crushed according to what is prescribed for him: he will act like the people of hell and he will go to hell. The one who acts with the people of hell even to be so close to them as the distance of an arm, will be returned according to what is prescribed for him: he will act like the people of paradise and he will go to paradise” [2].

All would be written in advance, including the eternal destiny in Paradise or in Hell. An eternal decree has even decided that some will not believe (Sura “Ya’ Sin” 36, 7-10).

Thus, this dogma conducts next to a division of humanity between those who are predestined to heaven and those who are predestined to hell.

The idea at once very ancient and modern of having the responsibility of imposing Islam has something that contradicts the idea of the almightiness of Allah. Would it be to prove to oneself that one has a part with the “saved” predestined to Paradise? How many non-Muslims must one kill to be reassured of having a part with “those whom God loves” and “who will go even as far as killing for his Cause” (Sura “The Rank” 61, 4).

Would not the Creator love us in a manner much simpler?

Jesus (‘Issa) tells us to “be sons (Ibn) of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5, 45). And Saint Paul takes the image of the potter: God is like the potter who shapes the just but who supports the evil (Romans 9, 21-23). Although Saint Paul says that God the Father “chose us to be holy and blameless before him, He destined us in love” (Ephesians 1, 4-5), there is no question here of determinism, for simply God has not created without a goal and for the absurd, but created us for “sanctity and love”.

The Virgin Mary, Maryam the very pure, helps us to go beyond what seems to be a major contradiction in our spirit: on the one hand God (omniscient) would know all and have programmed all, and on the other hand we would freely have to do something.

How? She makes us enter in the true knowledge of the Will of God: she has experienced that God brings into a history of a Covenant with Him a Covenant that keeps an account of human liberty and desires, even to offering a way to cooperate with Him for the good of all men without exception.

“Oh, Mary,

always turn me away from evil

and make me persevere in the good”.