Those who deny justice and follow the predestination try to refer to one aya in the Quran and that is Surat Assafaat, aya 96, Allah tells us clearly in this aya (وَاللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمْ وَمَا تَعْمَلُونَ) translation is Allah has created you and what you make. So those who believe in predestination and support the lack of free will in human's activities, they say this is a clear aya in the Quran that Allah says the He has created you and what you make and of course our deeds are what we make. In this way they say that what else can you say? This is a clear aya to defend our ideas and prove what we are talking about. But it is very important to notice that when there is half an aya or one aya in the middle of some other ayat, if you cut part of it and you stick only to that part, it is incomplete, it doesn't give the proper meaning. For example, everybody knows that the first step towards embracing Islam is say La Ilaha Illa Allah; there is no deity but Allah. So if somebody says La Ilaha and cut it, of course he's Kafir! This means he's denying the existence of God, he has to complete it. Sometimes there are ayat in the Quran that are connected either to the aya before it or the aya after. Like (فَوَيْلٌ لِّلْمُصَلِّينَ (4) الَّذِينَ هُمْ عَن صَلَاتِهِمْ سَاهُونَ ) Woe those who pray, those who do not concentrate whilst they are praying. So these are two ayat.
Once some people who are not experts or they have some hidden agenda or try to misuse certain ayat to fit their own understanding, they say look, Allah (this was made into poetry in Arabic by some sinful people ) did not say Woe to those who drink wine, He said woe with those who pray. But of course this is wrong. Why? Because we have to read the second aya. Woe to those who pray and do not focus and concentrate on their prayer.
The same argument applies to what we are talking about. In Surat Assafaat aya 96, it is true that Allah says (وَاللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمْ وَمَا تَعْمَلُونَ ) but one aya before He talks about something very important happened at time of Prophet Ibrahim (a.s.). Prophet Ibrahim was dealing with the idols and we all know that one day he took an axe and demolished and destroyed all the idols except one just to make it possible for those who are having wrong ideas about Allah's nature, about Allah's ability and He's not in any way to be symbolized as an idol or physically approached so Ibrahim (a.s.) or Allah narrating Ibrahim says that (قَالَ أَتَعْبُدُونَ مَا تَنْحِتُونَ ) this is the aya before aya 96. So he wanted to awaken them, to raise this type of understanding but how doing? You are making these sculptures, these idols out of wood or stone, you make it into a shape you think then you call it God and prostrate before it? (قَالَ أَتَعْبُدُونَ مَا تَنْحِتُونَ) Do you worship what you are making as idols? (وَاللَّهُ خَلَقَكُمْ وَمَا تَعْمَلُونَ) and Allah has created you and created all the material which you make the idols from.
So in this way we understand that cutting part of the aya or focusing on one aya without referring to the previous one which is connected to it is logically wrong and even in the methodology of Tafseer or even in theology it is not acceptable at all.
A similar one we find in Surat Al Anaam , aya 100-101, Allah in that aya says( وَجَعَلُوا لِلَّهِ شُرَكَاءَ الْجِنَّ وَخَلَقَهُمْ ۖ وَخَرَقُوا لَهُ بَنِينَ وَبَنَاتٍ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ ۚ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَىٰ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ(100
بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ أَنَّىٰ يَكُونُ لَهُ وَلَدٌ وَلَمْ تَكُن لَّهُ صَاحِبَةٌ ۖ وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۖ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ (101))
Here Allah wants to emphasize and prove something very important and that is (وَجَعَلُوا لِلَّهِ شُرَكَاءَ) those who think there are associates with Allah and these are from Jinn and immediately Allah says that even Jinn whom you associate Allah in worship, Allah has created them so they're not out of the whole universe whether they are mankind, Jinn, angels they are all created by Allah subhanahu wa talaa. And this means that when somebody wants to refer to a particular aya avoiding or even neglecting or ignoring the other parts which are related to the aya is logically wrong and let's conclude that these ayat whenever we talk about the might of Allah and His absolute power over everything then it was to refute the wrong ideas before at the time of jahiliyya that Allah has got sons and daughters or associates or a partner, these ayat say even those whom you believe are offspring, children or even partners even those you assume or pretend or think are related to Allah they are all created by Allah. And in the end we see that this "what you make" has been explained in a way that what we do we are responsible for, we will be held accountable for them and when any act, any deed is referred to us, it means that we are directly in charge of it. And this means that we have a choice, predestination is in no way matching and fitting the ayat of the Quran.
One of the arguments of those who support the predestination is that Allah knows what I am doing and because He knows what I am doing then it must happen. If it doesn't happen it means that Allah's knowledge will turn into ignorance.
One of the Iranian poets Khayyam who's known even in the West, his poetry has been translated into Arabic by many and even by Fitzgerald in English to show either the philosophical ideas or the literature of how one can express certain ideas in a nice way but I'm not talking about that, I'm only talking about this line of poetry in which he says that" Me drinking wine was known by God from the early days, if I stop drinking wine Allah's knowledge will be criticized and attacked so for me to keep the respect and the honour of Allah's knowledge I continue to drink wine." nbsp;
It has been said in different ways but there's another way to say that because Allah knows about what every single human being is doing so it will happen.
When we argue about this there is plenty of room for the debate here. First, if Allah's knowledge is the cause for everything to happen the same argument will apply to His own divine attributes and that means the divine attributes again become something a must which cannot be separated from Him and no one, no theologian, no scholar has claimed that yet. The second thing is clearer to answer this question and that is Allah knows about every single act, single event, even a tiny thing Allah is in full awareness and knowledge about it. He's omniscient but when it comes to our actions Allah knows about our abilities, our plans, what we think of but also knows about us that we have the ability to choose. Because He has created us in this way, the difference He made between us and animals, the beasts is that the beasts are only followed and directed by their nature and they do whatever they do because they can't do otherwise. But Allah made us different from animals and beasts that we can weigh things, we can see the difference between what is good and what is evil, to analyze these things then choose what is right or sometimes what is wrong.
So Allah knows about us, about everybody when they're created, how they're created, provided the abilities and at the same time knows that we are provided with the power of choice. We are provided by Him with the ability to choose, when Allah says (إِنَّا هَدَيْنَاهُ السَّبِيلَ إِمَّا شَاكِرًا وَإِمَّا كَفُورًا) or (وَهَدَيْنَاهُ النَّجْدَيْنِ ) Allah created us, guided us and then guided us to the two paths, the paths of obedience and disobedience but He puts us on the beginning of the road, we choose whether to go this way or that way. And for this reason we say that because Allah knows that we are going to choose this, so in the end who is responsible and accountable for the results or the consequences? It is us and not Him. So this is nothing to do with His knowledge.
Another thing to explain about the link between His knowledge and what we choose is this: let's think that I am a teacher of mathematics, I go to the classroom in the beginning of the academic year and I have thirty students and from the first or second day or week, if I am experienced and clever enough to handle the case, I will see that there are certain students in the classroom who are clever, brilliant with sharp memories doing their work and homework very well and there are some others who are lazy, don't comply with their homework, they spend all their time in teasing and bullying and so on. So I have some sort of idea, I know that these couple of students are brilliant, they will end up with A or A* and I see there are two or three who will fail because they do not comply with the requirements of the classroom or they don't have that ability, they have some sort of shortage in their ability to work in mathematics. Maybe there are good in History but they are not good for mathematics and different abilities are understood.
It is known in the history of teaching that in every classroom on average fifteen percent of the students are brilliant, fifteen are very low and about seventy percent are average. And this goes with all schools whether it is about medicine or law, jurisprudence or tafseer, or any other branch of knowledge.
Let's cut it short, when a teacher predicts or reads from the beginning that these are the brilliant students and they deserve to get A or A*, I ask you in the end if they get that result in their final exams who is going to be praised? Of course the teacher is going to be praised because he did his maximum effort to educate and to teach but it really is the hard work of the students, the focus of the students on the studies and those who fail cannot blame the teacher because the teacher knew that they are going to fail. The teacher knew that they are not going to comply with the course and the result is that if they fail they will be responsible for the failure. Those who will get the highest of marks; they will be having the honour and privilege and will be admired for their serious work and the time they spent and the focus on the subject. In this way we understand that neither Allah's knowledge nor Allah's will, will be responsible for our own actions in the end no one but ourselves will be responsible for our deeds. If we are doing good of course the reward will be there and if we choose the other way of course we will receive the chastisement and will be held accountable for it.
May Allah enlighten within us giving the ability to differentiate between what is true and what is false.