| IQBAL AND TAQDIR II |
by: Dr. Mansoor Alam
--The Quranic verses which were presented before clearly state that:
- The universe works precisely according to the laws decreed by Allah
- Human beings are endowed with Free Will and, therefore, are responsible for their own actions. Every time I am confronted with a choice, I exercise my free will. But once I have made my choice, the result is no longer in my hands. The result is governed by the laws of Allah which Iqbal calls the "law of Mukafat-e-A'mal." The operation of this law is immutable and does not change for anyone. Whatever I sow, that is what I am going to reap. This is the fundamental principle of life - according to the Quran and Iqbal.
Keeping these facts in mind, one is perplexed at the current situation when one hears sermons such as the following:
Whatever is to happen in one's life is already written before birth. No matter what, one can not change this writing in one's taqdir. Allah gives wealth or poverty to whomsoever He wills. He gives dignity or indignity to whomsoever He wills. If He wills, He can turn a beggar into a king and a king into a beggar. One should simply accept the condition one is in and should not complain.
These types of sermons are constantly heard from every pulpit. They are presented as universal truths and fundamental principles of Islam. No one is supposed to challenge this belief in the idea of predetermination or "taqdir." One is supposed to accept this as (blind) faith.
Quran, on the other hand, emphasizes action. Allama Iqbal in his work Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam starts the preface with the very first sentence: "The Quran is a book which emphasizes 'deed' rather than 'idea.' "
How right he is. An idea must lead to action. An idea without an action results in mysticism which produces its own virtual universe which has nothing to do with the real universe or with real people and facing the real problems of real life. Iqbal says:
"If you are not able to handle the problems of the world, it is useless to be absorbed in the expectations about heaven."
Now, one wonders how this idea of predetermination so alien to Islam became an integral part of Islamic faith and immobilized an essentially mobile people. The same Quran, which invigorated and energized the Prophet's companions and their followers (may Allah be pleased with them) into perpetual motion and constant struggle, is with us but not producing the same fruits as it did fourteen centuries ago.
"Although there is no difference between words and meaning, the Azan of a Mulla is quite different than the Azan of a Mujahid."
It is worthwhile to investigate how this concept of predetermination became the sixth component of Islamic faith. It is also instructive to find out when it happened and why.
Let us begin our journey.
At the time when the Quran was being revealed, there were people who believed in predetermination. The Quran says:
(6:149)
"Mushriks will say that if Allah wished neither we nor our ancestors would have done shirk and neither would we have declared anything haraam. . ."
Therefore, according to this verse the people who were mushriks at the time of the Prophet (PBUH) used to say that if we are mushriks, that is because Allah has written it in our fate. And if we have declared something forbidden (haraam) it is because Allah has preordained everything. Who are we to go against what God has already preordained or predetermined? The Quran addresses such people as
(6:149)
i.e., these people are lying and practicing falsehood.
In surah Yasin (36) Allah says:
(36:47)
"When they are told to spend (to feed the hungry) what Allah has provided them with, the kafirs say to the momins, 'Shall we then feed those whom if Allah has so willed, He would have fed?' How openly deviated these people are."
It is clear from these verses that there were people at the time of the Prophet (PBUH) who believed in predetermination. Quran says that these people were mushriks and kafirs and Allah refutes their belief in predetermination or preordination. As long as the Quran was the foundation and source of Islam, the concept of predetermination would not find any support among the Muslims. How could Muslims tolerate an idea which the Quran calls kufr and shirk? But when the Quran lost its place from being the central authority for enforcing the unity of and regulating the lives of Muslims to a mere peripheral position in their lives, the door was opened for non-Quranic concepts and beliefs to enter Islam - the earliest among them being the concept of predetermination.
At the advent of Islam, the Arabian peninsula was surrounded by the two great empires - superpowers of those days - on the west by the Roman empire and on the east by the Persian empire. The Arabs, mostly bedouins, were nomads. They were divided into various tribes. The Romans and the Persians did not think much of them. They were no threat to their empires. These bedouin Arabs were mostly engaged in tribal warfare amongst themselves. They were ignorant and illiterate. This was the period which historically is called the period of Jahiliya.
Now, after the advent of Islam, within a very short span of time, these bedouin Arabs defeated both these empires and became their ruler. People talk about the miracles of the Prophet (PBUH). This is the greatest miracle which the world has ever seen of this magnitude. How could it be explained otherwise - that a group of mostly illiterate and bedouin Arabs (may Allah be pleased with all of them) could accomplish this miraculous feat in such a short time [it is as if, let us say, a country like Ethiopia now will defeat both Europe and America and become their ruler in a span of thirty to forty years. Sounds unbelievable? It must have sounded unbelievable to the Romans and the Persians of the time regarding the Arabs' conquest of their empires].
People of Persia accepted Islam en masse after the fall of the Persian empire but their leaders (both political and military) felt humiliated and shocked. They could not forget the emotional and psychological humiliation they had suffered by being defeated by a people with far less military power than their own. A sense of revenge was smoldering in their hearts - their military power was shattered and they had become a ruled people rather than the ruler. The Persians never liked the Arabs anyway but their defeat on the battlefield at the hands of the Arabs was like putting salt on their wounded pride. They were bent on finding out the root cause of the Arab's newly found strength. It didn't take them long to figure out that it must be the Quran which has completely transformed their lives. And the power of these Arabs must be due to the transformation which had taken place in their ideology of life (Iman) because of the Quranic message.
When the governor of Persia, Harmuzan, was brought to Medina (after the arrest), Caliph Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) asked him the reason for their defeat. Harmuzan replied that before, when Arabs and Persians used to fight, it was no problem to defeat the Arabs; but now the Persians cannot fight both the Arabs and their God.
Jews and Christians had suffered similar fate at the hands of the Arabs. Jews were driven out of Arabia and the (Christian) Romans had to surrender Jerusalem to the Arabs.
We see, therefore, that the Jews, Christians, and the Zorostrian Persians all had their own axes to grind against these (in their eyes) lowly Arabs. Thus began the greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind, in terms of its universal impact. Jews and Christian (religious as well as temporal) leaders were already fuming inside their hearts and minds because of the humiliation they had suffered at the hands of the Arabs, and now the Persian intellectuals joined their rank. They combined their forces together (in conspiracy) against Islam which Iqbal calls the conspiracy of A'jm. Iqbal uses the term "A'jm" to describe this combined force and the term "A'jmi Islam" to mean the (corrupted) form of Islam due to the infiltration of unQuranic concepts and ideologies from other religions (such as Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, etc.) into Islam [Iqbal uses the term "A'rabi Islam" to represent the pure and the pristine, (i.e., uncorrupted) Islam with its ideas and ideologies coming solely from the Quran]. The first of the concepts in this long chain of non-Quranic concepts which entered Islam is the concept of predetermination.
There used to be a group of intellectuals and political experts in Persia who were very close advisors of the king. They were offered golden bangles as a sign of the status they used to enjoy in the inner circles of the government. They were called "Osawera"
( ). After the fall of the Persian empire, the general population accepted Islam (as mentioned before) but the members of "Osawera," although outwardly professing Islam, never really had accepted their defeat at the hands of the Arabs. Since they had figured out that the strength of these Arabs now lies in their new faith, they tried to corrupt the very essence of the Arabs' strengths, i.e., the pure message of Quran.
History tells us that the first person to introduce the idea of predestination in Islam was Maabad bin Khalid Jhanni who learned it from Abu Yunus, a member of Osawera. Ghilan Damishki transmitted this idea further after learning it from Maabad. According to this idea, the destiny of human beings is considered to be predetermined and the followers of this idea were known as Jabriya.
This idea was also the cornerstone of Christianity. The idea that every child is born a sinner and no action of his can erase the stain of the original sin is pure Jabr (force). The dualism of good and evil was also present among the Jews. This idea may have come into the Jews from the Zoroastrian influence during the period of their captivity in Babylon which was under the control of the Persians. History also tells us that during the early period of the Abbasid Dynasty, Jaham bin Safwan (who was originally from Khurasan) propagated this idea of predetermination (or Jabr) with so much fanfare that the followers of this idea became known as Jahamiya. There is confusion in history as to who was finally responsible for this idea and what were the names of the groups (sometimes they were called Jabriya, and sometimes Qadriya). Whosoever might have been the originator of this idea (Maabad or Jaham) and whatever source it may have come from (Zoroastrianism, Judaism, or Christianity), one thing is absolutely certain; that this idea of predetermination is against the Quran and it came to Islam from non-Islamic sources.
This idea of preordination perfectly suited the muslim kings and dictators - so they made sure it became one of the fundamental components of Islamic faith. Once it was inserted as the sixth component of Iman (although the Quran only mentions five-2:177), no one could question these rulers and they were accountable to no one. This is because their oppression was guised as taqdir, part of religion, and unquestionable. This concept of predetermination gave them a free reign and absolute authority to exploit the muslim masses as much as they could - all in the name of religion. Since the muslim masses were (and still are) very religious, they accepted (and most still accept) every fatwa given by the religious scholars at the behest of their Royal highnesses. Just as the Pharaoh could not have ruled without the support of Haman and Qaroon, muslim kings could not rule without them either. So they invented their own versions of Hamans and Qaroons to entrench their own absolute authority over the muslim masses. People who challenged them were ruthlessly crushed by declaring them "Murtad" ( ) [This is another topic and requires separate discussion. Suffice it to say that a lot of muslim blood has been spilled using this concept of Murtad, again, an un-Quranic concept]. These kings were even called (shadow of god on earth).
The three institutions symbolized by the Pharaohs (dictators), the Hamans (religious priesthood), and the Qaroons (capitalists) operate within their own spheres but always cooperate with each other because they know that they cannot survive alone. Royal highnesses took control of the political arena but they needed the blessings of the religious priesthood for their survival. The capital to sustain these two forces was provided by the capitalists. The muslim masses accepted (or were forced to accept) their fate according to their belief in predetermination.
Thus became a concept totally alien to Islam one of the cornerstones of Islamic faith.
And in the words of Iqbal:
"What to say of earth, even the sky (heaven) is crying on your crooked vision (thinking). It is unbelievable that you have crucified the verses of Quran (with unQuranic concepts)."
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