They arise for every individual and every nation which is...

They arise for every individual and every nation which is capable of thinking over general questions. Probably there is no nation in the world which has not thought over them in one way or other. Material Philosophy And Destiny Some people are under the impression that this dilemma presents itself only to those who believe in religion, and the materialists are not faced with any such problem. This is a false impression.

The people having the material way of thinking are also faced with this problem, though with a little difference. According to the law of causation every event and every phenomenon is the product of one or more causes, and that cause (or causes) in turn is the product of some other cause or causes. It is an indisputable corollary of this law that in the presence of the relevant cause the effect must appear and in the absence of it, the appearance of the effect is impossible.

The materialists accept this relationship between a cause and its effect and consider it to be the basis of their material philosophy. Now obviously the human acts like all other phenomena must be governed by this law. They cannot be an exception to it. If that is so where can theory of free will and human liberty stand? This is why we see that in all old and new philosophical systems the problem of compulsion and free will exists quite well.

As we will explain later, some variation in the nature of the problem makes no substantial difference In fact the belief in fate and destiny has certain advantages that are missing in the belief in physical compulsion. Oneness Of Allah And His Purity The dilemma faced by the theologians and the religious philosophers was that they on the one hand believed that nothing could happen without the Will of Allah and on the other knew that nothing dirty or wicked could be ascribed to Him.

Consequently they wavered. Some of them held that human acts and deeds, which could often be dirty or wicked, were not subject to the Will of Allah. Others maintained that everything was subject to His Will because He alone is the Primary Cause of the existence of everything.

It is reported that Ghaylan of Damascus who was a supporter of free will once said to the well-known scholar, Rabi’ah al-Ray: “Do you think that Allah likes to be disobeyed?” What he meant was the Rabi’ah believed that even the sins occurred by the Will of Allah. Rabi’ah at once resorted: “It is you who believe that Allah is disobeyed against His will”.