ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Man and His Destiny Part 10: When a Divine Decree Comes, Man Feels Helpless Many reports from the Holy Prophet (s) and the Imams say that when a divine decree comes, the whole system of caution, especially the faculties of thinking and reasoning cease to work. This point has been depicted in Persian and Arabic literature also. In the book of hadith, Al-Jami’-as-Saghir a number of Prophetic sayings to this effect have been quoted.

One hadith says: “When Allah wants to carry out his decree, he wrests the power of reasoning and understanding from the people. They repent when this power is restored to them afterwards”. In the Tuhaf-ul-Uqul Imam Reza (a) is reported to have said: “When Allah wants his decree to be carried out, He wrests their thinking power from the people concerned. After the decree has been carried out this power is restored to each one of them. Then they wonder how it was that such a thing happened”.

The famous mystic poet of Iran, Moulawi says: • “When a divine decree comes, the power of understanding quits. Allah alone knows what He proposes”. • “When a divine decree comes, you cease to see deep. Then you cannot distinguish between a friend and a foe”. • “When a divine decree come, the physician loses his skill. His medicine does harm instead of being beneficial”.

A difficulty about all such statements is that they describe fate and destiny as a force invalidating the general principal of causation and as a factor stronger than all other factors. This view is contradictory to what we have said that Allah does not decree anything to happen except through the normal course of causation. The wording of the hadiths also supports what we have said. A hadith says: “Allah declines to carry out the affairs of the world except through their causes.

He has appointed a cause for everything. Every cause has a reason behind it. Every reason is a piece of knowledge and every piece of knowledge has an eloquent door”. (Majma’ul-Bahrayn) Another difficulty is that these statements are contradictory to the general rule expressly mentioned in the Qur’an that everything is governed by fate and destiny and there is nothing which may be outside of their area of control.

If everything and every event is governed by destiny, then divine destiny must every moment be operative. As such there is no meaning of saying “When a divine decree comes”.