( Surah al-Baqarah ...

( Surah al-Baqarah , 2:186) The Holy Prophet (s) has said: “Prayer changes even confirmed destiny”. Similarly charity is another factor which is a manifestation of fate and destiny and which is effective in changing the fortune. On the whole, vice and virtue, repentance and impenitence, justice and injustice, prayer and curse and the like are things which affect human beings in regard to their life, health, means of living etc.

Imam Sadiq (a) has said: “The number of those who die because of committing sins is larger than the number of those who die their natural death, and the number of those who live because of doing good deeds is larger than the number of those who live because of their real age”. The idea is that the sins shorten life and the good deeds prolong is. They change the appointed time and death.

They change the destiny though, as we have pointed out earlier, this change is also a part of the divinely ordained destiny. Here we cannot enter into the discussion as to how the spiritual matters affect the material things and how the system of causation works in this respect. That will require deep philosophical discussion. Anyhow, the philosophical view expressed in this connection agrees with what is indicated by the religious texts.

In the present context we do not propose to dwell on the conditions under which the spiritual causes, such as prayer and charity and similarly injustice, tyranny and infringement of the rights of others are effective and create reactions. Perhaps a voluminous book can be complied on the cases of human experience in this connection. At present we only want to point out that the sequence of causes and effects in the world is not confined to material and perceptible phenomena. Previous…