Q330 :It is our firm belief, supported by
the Qur’an and the Sunnah, that a man’s life is predetermined
by Allah. Nevertheless, people say that in such and such
country, life expectancy is longer; or, if this and that are
done, people can live longer; or if such and such precautions
are taken, a person or a group of people would have been saved,
and so on. By leading a simple and disciplined life one can
have a peaceful go, but cannot cross the “deadline”. Please
netment.
A330 : There is a simple law which applies
to human life as well as to the universe in general. Indeed, it
has a direct bearing on the task Allah has assigned to man when
He first created him, namely, building human life on earth.
That is the law of cause and effect. No individual or netmunity
can ignore this law or its implications without suffering
disastrous consequences. Let us take a simple example: When a
certain area has a good rainy season, agricultural produce is
bound to be plentiful. A drought means shortage of supply and,
in consequence, higher prices, poverty, hunger and even famine.
If a country knows from experience that it has a “dry” winter
every two or three years when rain is scarce, it can plan ahead
and preserve certain supplies in order to alleviate the effects
of the drought. Allah gives us in the Qur’an a very good
example of this when He tells us that Prophet Yousuf foretold
the king of Egypt that after seven years of good harvest, the
land will go through a patch of terrible drought lasting
another seven years. A program of preparedness for the
forthneting emergency was devised and put into operation. It
was Yousuf himself who supervised it and the people of Egypt
and the surrounding areas were able to live through the drought
period without much affliction. If someone suggests that
without that program of preparedness, which meant stocking more
than half of the harvest, in the first seven good seasons, the
population would not have suffered any consequences and those
who managed to live easily would have continued to live in the
same way and no one would have starved, then we can only tell
him that he does not know what he is talking about. A drought
of seven consecutive years will play havoc with the lives of
the population of any country. However, the people of Egypt
were able to stand this long hardship because of the wise
policy adopted by Yousuf (peace be upon him). That was a good
example of how the law of cause and effect works. What we need
to know is that it does not contradict Allah’s will because it
is part of it. It is Allah who set that law in operation and
allowed its consequences to be fulfilled. It only needs a
little stretch of the mind to understand that this law is also
part of predestination, in its broad, Islamic sense. Let us
take another example. Until recently smallpox was a major
childhood disease which caused death and a great deal of
suffering to millions of victims every year. As a result of a
worldwide campaign of vaccination, smallpox has disappeared
from the face of the earth. It is now 16 years since the last
known case of smallpox was recorded in Somalia. Many of us
remember friends, relatives or schoolmates who fell victim to
this disease. Some of us still have its effects on our faces
and bodies. Without that long campaign of vaccination, smallpox
would have still been with us, causing untold suffering to our
children. There is no doubt that smallpox has disappeared by
Allah’s will, but the medium of its eradication was the
vaccination campaign undertaken by man in fulfillment of
Allah’s will. Can anyone suggest that smallpox would have
disappeared from the face of the earth in 1977 whether the
campaign of vaccination was organized or not? A similar effort
of immunization of children against six major childhood
diseases is going on, with the eradication of one of them,
polio, being clearly in sight. As efforts of monitoring the
effects of the program show, incidence of these diseases have
dropped with increased coverage of children with immunization.
Since most of these diseases could kill their victims, the fall
in occurrence has meant a netmensurate drop in child mortality
as a result of these illnesses. You have only to look at facts
and figures to realize that in a certain country, the number of
children dying with, say, measles, is half what it was ten
years ago after the rate of coverage with vaccination against
measles has reached 50 percent of the children of that country.
Are we not required by Islam to relate these facts to each
other and draw the appropriate conclusions which will tell us
that a 100 percent coverage of children with immunization will
inevitably mean that the occurrence of the disease will be
minimal if not stopped netpletely. Human beings fall ill and
then they do recover. Do we ask ourselves how and why? When a
person falls ill, he is required by Islam to seek medical
treatment if it is available. The Prophet tells us to seek
medical treatment because, as he puts it, “Allah has not
created an illness without creating a cure for it.” This is a
good example of cause and effect. When you take a medicine, you
are cured by Allah’s will, because He has put into that
particular medicine the qualities which enable the human body
to overnete a certain disease. The Prophet tells us that “a
human being cannot fill a worse container than his stomach.” He
also advises us that if we want to eat our fill, let us divide
our tummy into three portions, one for food, one for drink and
one for breathing. By giving us this valued advice, the Prophet
is certainly showing us one way to avoid disease. Medicine has
established for certain that the consumption of particular
substances is associated with certain diseases. Cigarette
smoking, for example, has been established as a direct cause of
lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases and other types of cancer.
On the basis of this certainty, the majority of scholars are
giving rulings that tobacco consumption is forbidden in Islam.
They argue that Allah would not permit us to use a substance
which is likely to cause killer diseases. Does not their ruling
tell us that Islam recognizes the fact that by avoiding such a
substance, we spare ourselves the possibility of falling victim
to these diseases? Similarly, a healthy diet is important for
health. When a person eats “rich” food, which means that his
diet has a large proportion of fat and sugar, he is liable to
put on weight and if he is in the habit of “washing down” his
fatty meal with a couple of drinks, he exposes himself to
increased risk of a heart attack. Are we not, as Muslims,
required to relate these scientifically proven facts to the
Hadith which I have just quoted? When we do so, we conclude
that Islam likes its followers to have a balanced diet which
also means that they should not eat too much. But why would
Islam want us to do so when what has been written will take
place whatever we do? If the death of a particular person will
occur at a particular moment of time, whether he follows a
healthy lifestyle or not, why should it matter what he eats,
drinks, smokes, etc.? Is it true that there is a “deadline”
which no one can cross? May I ask in this connection why does
Islam prescribe capital punishment for a murder? And why is a
martyr rewarded with heaven in addition to forgiveness of all
his past sins? If the victim of a murderer would have died any
way when the weapon of the murderer caused his death and if the
martyr would have died at the same moment whether he was
fighting for Allah’s cause or not, then the severity of the
punishment in the first case and the abundance of the reward in
the second can be called into question. There is no doubt in my
mind that the punishment for murderer is the right one and the
reward of a martyr is the one which is most befitting with
Allah’s grace and generosity. It is true that a murdered person
died at the point in time when his life ended, as it was known
to Allah long before the creation of man. But if the murderer
did not pull the trigger and the bullet did not hit the victim,
that victim would not have died at that particular moment.
Read, if you will, the Hadith which states, “He who likes to
have his provisions increased and his life extended should be
kind to his relatives.” Here the Prophet is speaking of an
extended life duration. We should not explain his statement
away as meant figuratively, because it is not. What he tells us
is the truth. All the above examples can be easily understood
within the general framework of the law of cause and effect
which Allah has set into operation. Therefore, it works with
Allah’s will and as a means of bringing about what He
determined. Most of our actions are done by our free will. This
means that it is up to us to do them or not. It is up to me to
sit at this moment of time and write this answer to your
question. I can easily stop and go and do something else.
Similarly, you could have decided not to send your question to
me. If you did not, I would not be writing on the subject. By
the same token, the murderer could have refrained from pulling
the trigger and his victim would have lived. That does not mean
that he would have violated Allah’s will because it is also
Allah’s will for a man to live if he is not hit by a bullet in
his head or in his heart. The same man will meet his death
sometime later when a different cause of death will have
occurred. Its occurrence is also part of what Allah has
predetermined. If all the people on earth have access to safe
drinking water and proper sanitation to dispose of their waste
and if all people have their children vaccinated, a 50 percent
reduction in the incident of diseases would be achieved. You
will probably agree if half the illnesses suffered by mankind
are avoided, the other half will cause less deaths. What that
means in your terminology is that “the deadline” for the end of
the life of many of us would be changed by Allah’s will as He
has already predetermined for man’s life.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )