Do you believe in Qadar (Predestined)?
How often do you hear "Waa iska Qadar Ilaahay"... "Ilaahay ayaa ugu tala galay"... etc etc etc...
It is very common thesedays in the Muslim world, specialy. Most often it is used in the context of scapegoating blame by instead diverting the blame to the creator who "predistined" for that failure to happen. It is a self-defeating belief. One of the biggest psychological unfortunates in the Muslim World.
I know its one of the 6 pilars of Imaan, but I believe the way it was interpretted is wrong. For instance, How can Allah expect you to work for you Diin and follow the right path and do the right things, when he is the one who has pre-programmed all the actions you'll do anyway? I mean, every action, whether you'll be a good person or bad person, whethre you'll go to Jannah or Jahannama, they are all written in the "Lawxul Maxfuud", as we are told. So, if I sit on my butt and do nothing or if I work like crazy, at the end what I do is not in my control but has already been scripted. I am no more than a mere object following a script.
I think that notion is wrong. I think the philosophical meaning of "Qadar" has deeper meaning.
Lets for instance compare two man made computer annimations. One, a simple Flash Movie; Two, a sophesticated computer model of humans/humaniods (Artificial Intelligence). Both are man made. But one, the former, requires no brains at all. The flash movie will repeat the same staff over and over and over again. The script is very simple. You would be utterly stupid if you expected the flash movie do something you didn't script for.
The later Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, is more complex and sophesticated. The characters in this AI model do make decisions for themselves based on set of rules. Those decisions that are available for the AI model, have been pre-programmed and defined by a Human being... its a matter for the AI model to choose the best decision depending upon its conclusion based on the set of rules that were provided.
The human that created this AI model will not be able to guess what the next action of the AI model will be, because it will depend entirely on the conclusions and calculations of the AI model itself. So whatever action the AI model decides will be of its own choosing and it wouldn't blame me for choosing that decision out of all the other options available.
On the same token, I believe Allah has put down all the options/actions and decisions that could ever be on Lawxul-Maxfuud, but its on my own choosing to choose which action to take. And not the often-held view that, ALlah has pre-destined for me to sit on my butt at this point in time. No, I choosed to sit on my butt, and its not allah that I should blame.
Similarly, Muslims should stop scapegoating their failures on Allah.
What do you guys think?