If they had decided to work...

If they had decided to work, the money they earned would equally have been the result of destiny. Thus, whether you are active and diligent or idle, you in no way contravene destiny. A change in destiny does not, then, mean the rebellion of a certain factor against fate or opposition to the law of causality. No factor producing an effect in the world can be exempt from the universal law of causality.

Something that causes a change in destiny is, itself, one linking the chain of causality, one manifestation of fate and destiny. To put it differently, one destiny is changed by means of another destiny.

In contrast with the sciences that point in only one direction and show the orientation only of certain aspect of phenomena, the laws of metaphysics are not concerned with phenomena from the conjunctural point of view although the laws do regulate the phenomena, they are indifferent with respect to the orientation they assume.

In reality, both the phenomena themselves and their orientation are subject to the vast and comprehensive laws of metaphysics: in whatever direction the phenomena tend, they are still held inescapably in the embrace of those laws. The situation is like that of an expansive, broad plain; even its most northerly and most southerly parts are included within the plain.

***** In short, fate and destiny represent nothing other than the universality of the principle of causality; they represent a meta- physical truth that cannot be measured in the same way as the data of science. The principle of causality says only that every phenomenon has a cause; it cannot of itself make any prediction, this being a property totally absent from metaphysical awareness.

For the laws of metaphysics, which is a descriptive form of knowledge and the firm and stable ground for the various phenomena of the world, it makes no difference which particular phenomena occur. A highway along which men travel thanks to its firmness and stability is completely indifferent to the direction in which they are traveling. ‘Ali, peace be upon him, the Commander of the Faithful, was resting in the shade of a broken wall that seemed likely to collapse.

suddenly he arose and went to sit in the shade of another wall. He was asked: "Are you fleeing what God has destined?" He said, "I am taking refuge in God's power from what He has destined," meaning, 'I am fleeing from one destiny to another destiny. Both sitting and rising were equally subject to destiny.