Predestination of One's Deeds?

Question: If the time of one's death is fixed by God, the Creator, then in case of murder or suicide a person may die before their time of death. Their time and way of dying is set to suicide or murder. If so, the person himself (in case of suicide) or the murderer (in case of murder) is carrying out God's work.

Predestination of One's Deeds?

Waleed Ahmed Najmeddine

The question exposes the misunderstandings many people have regarding the Belief about Destiny and Fate. This belief is very important for all Muslims, and any person interested in Islam should be aware of it because it is considered to be the Sixth Pillar of Faith in Islam – Qada’ and Qadar.

Muslims believe that Allah (the Creator of all that exists) has knowledge of all things — both apparent and hidden. The knowledge of the Divine is completely different and much more encompassing than that of us humans. Allah is the Most Knowledgeable and is the All-Knowing.On the other hand, Islam teaches that all human beings have a free will to choose to do good or bad actions. Yet Allah Almighty, through His very special and most encompassing knowledge, knows what paths we will follow, whether good or bad. Due to His infinite wisdom, Allah allows some things to come to pass and prevents others. This always takes place according to His divine will.

Almighty Allah does not force us to perform evil actions. He allows some of us to follow through with them for reasons only He knows. Also, He does not force us to perform good actions. He allows us to do them in accordance with His divine plan.

It is not the work of Allah if someone practices evil. Almighty Allah has already commanded us to be good to one another, regardless of our different cultures or backgrounds. He forbade acts such as murder, suicide, theft, adultery, and so on. He has clearly warned us, through many prophets and messengers throughout history, to avoid evil and to do good. We are the ones who do the deeds out of our own free will.

We cannot ask Allah why He allows bad things to happen. There are many terrible things that occur on a daily basis and sometimes people blame the Creator because He allows them to happen.

Very few of us ask, "Why do we, as human beings, with all of our abilities and knowledge of good and bad, allow evil to happen around us while we do nothing?" It is easy to blame Allah, but it is never a fair assessment of the situation.
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Excerpted with minor modification from Q&A published in Islam Online -- Ask About Islam, 14th March 2006

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