I read in one of the other topics on Life1 that when a person is born, dies and gets married has already been decided when, where, how and who it will happen. But then I was thinking if these things have already been decided, then why do we get told that if you do good deeds you will be rewarded in life and if you do bad you will get punished?
I mean if things have already been decided, then what is the point of this life? what is the point of trying any harder? It is like when a person is in distress and they question Allah and pray to make it better and when things dont get better, they say it was in your kismat. If our kismat has already been written then surely good and bad has already been written in kismat too.
So if it is written in your kismat you will do wrong, then why get punished for something that has already been decided for you? It was not something that is in your control.
Or for like example they say who your going to marry and when your gonna marry is also written in your kismat, then why do people get depressed when they get turned down or dont find anyone they like or when people use excuses such as money, status, caste to turn someone down. Is that also written in the kismat?
What i am trying to get at is, is kismat already written for every muslim or is just a concept that someone has created to justifies the problems in life?
Well they shouldnt get depressed, let say, if they get turned down for marriage. Allah SWT is the best planner and He knows who is the one for you. He hands you down good and bad experiences in order for you to get closer to Him. The purpose of this life is for us to worship Allah SWT.
AS for why get punished for something that has already been decided for you...well Allah has also given us Free Will. We decided it what we choose is good for us..for our deen and our duniya. This is why we have brains..otherwise we would all be robots. Allah SWT could have made everyone Muslim in this world and could have made everyone worship Him, but he did not.
If he have a bad experience in life, we should look to Allah to help us, to guide us. Sometimes Allah gives us bad situations to punish us for something we did in this duniya..and it w ould be better to be punished in this duniya than the next. Sometimes he gives us hardships to make us stronger and a better Muslim. It is a test. We decide how we want to deal with this.
I'm sorry...I'm not such an eloquent person in terms of explaining things, but i hope u get what im talking about.
The easiest way which I found to think about it is this way.
1) We all have free will
2) Allah SWT is all knowing.
3) Since Allah SWT is all knowing, then He knows the future at any given point, such as at our birth.
4) Since he knows the future at the moment of our birth, then he knows the choices that we will freely make at various point in our life
5) Since he already knows the choices that we will choose to make of our own free will..... he may as well have it written.
In other words, our kismet is both written, and yet is a reflection of the choices that we choose to make trhough our life, independently of it being written.
So you mean that even though it is all written down, it can still be changed or amended???
I don't think it's quite like that.
Let's trying thinking of this this way. If I made a time machine and went forward 5 years, and found you in the future, and took notes on what you chose to do (for example, help blind woman cross the road, give to charity, treat an injured person with kindness and mercy), then I came back in time to today and wrote a book about what you will do in future, but then don't show you the book or let you even know of its existence.
Your future actions will still be written today, yet you will at the same time exercise full choice and full control over your actions. Should you not be rewarded or punished for choosing those actions?
First of all there is a difference in what is predestined and what is your destiny ... Certain things in our lives are predestined to occur no matter what we do. For example we will die, everyone of us knows this. How we will die is however based on the decisions we make or are made for us, but the when is predestined.
Our destiny is a combination of the paths we choose with those predestined elements that will come our way at given times during our lives.
We may be set to marry person x at time y, however, it's our choice that we have an Islamic marriage ceremony or choose to have a hedonistic one for example.
To make things further complicated everything we do is known by Allah (SWT) in a manner which is not unlike comparing what eternity in a single moment feels like. It is beyond our understanding. All we know is that Allah (SWT) fulfils our choices when we make them to show that we have freedom to choose even if it means disobeying the Law He has sent.
Think of a path then on it comes a juncture, splits a number of ways, then each path in turns comes to other junctures splitting to further paths ... then imagine that at some point on every sub-sub-path there comes a milestone that brings all paths crossing back to a certain point then this is like what predestination is ... that it is the inevitable arrival for all possible choices we make will come to ... death is obviously one of them ... wealth or bounties on the other hand is not so obvious but that too has a fixed amount.
Consider a rich man eating in a restaurant and a poor man eating in a fast food place both eat their fill ... despite the difference in wealth they both get an equal share of the bounties of Allah (SWT) as they are both full each with only one stomach to fill ... or leave 1/3rd empty to be Islamic about it.
Thanks guys for your replies, it just resolved some confusions i had in my head, its just abit hard to get your head around it but once you do its not so hard to understand.
The easiest way which I found to think about it is this way.
1) We all have free will
2) Allah SWT is all knowing.
3) Since Allah SWT is all knowing, then He knows the future at any given point, such as at our birth.
4) Since he knows the future at the moment of our birth, then he knows the choices that we will freely make at various point in our life
5) Since he already knows the choices that we will choose to make of our own free will..... he may as well have it written.
In other words, our kismet is both written, and yet is a reflection of the choices that we choose to make trhough our life, independently of it being written.
Well they shouldnt get depressed, let say, if they get turned down for marriage. Allah SWT is the best planner and He knows who is the one for you. He hands you down good and bad experiences in order for you to get closer to Him. The purpose of this life is for us to worship Allah SWT.
AS for why get punished for something that has already been decided for you...well Allah has also given us Free Will. We decided it what we choose is good for us..for our deen and our duniya. This is why we have brains..otherwise we would all be robots. Allah SWT could have made everyone Muslim in this world and could have made everyone worship Him, but he did not.
If he have a bad experience in life, we should look to Allah to help us, to guide us. Sometimes Allah gives us bad situations to punish us for something we did in this duniya..and it w ould be better to be punished in this duniya than the next. Sometimes he gives us hardships to make us stronger and a better Muslim. It is a test. We decide how we want to deal with this.
I'm sorry...I'm not such an eloquent person in terms of explaining things, but i hope u get what im talking about.
MS,
Very well said, concise and to the point
thank you
FREE WILL? I would beg to differ. All we have is a "Choice". A "Choice" from "Wrong" to "Right". Then question arises what is wrong what is right? and who decides what's wrong/right. Its all been laid out to us in simple format.
I read in one of the other topics on Life1 that when a person is born, dies and gets married has already been decided when, where, how and who it will happen. But then I was thinking if these things have already been decided, then why do we get told that if you do good deeds you will be rewarded in life and if you do bad you will get punished?
try to understand the difference between two simple statements below and hopefully it will make sense to u.
You will do what ever is wriiten in Loh-e-Mehfooz.
What ever you will do is written in Lohe-e-Mehfooz.