Nature Of Human Test And Trial In This World

Question

There is my personal view which I haven’t discussed with any scholar yet. So it is all my personal feeling. I just want your comment if what I feel could be correct or this is against Quran and Sunanh.

My feeling sometimes (after looking into all the difficulties that humans have to pass through in this world) is that it could be possible that Allah is not, let’s say, instructing directly for all these sufferings to happen. Rather it is Allah’s own designed system that everything or I should say every amal (action) is coming out as reaction of another action preceding it.

This system/program of the world was initiated by Allah by saying KUN (Be). And then after that He in a way left the world by itself. And as in the case of nuclear reaction you just have to break the nucleus of one atom and energy by itself breaks the nucleus of neighboring atoms which then breaks 4 more and the never ending reaction goes on. So probably similarly Allah has broken that 1^st atom of this universe system by saying KUN and the ever expanding universe came into existence which was based on the rule that for every action there is a reaction. The reaction to be good or bad is dependent upon the action which has taken place. Now after setting this rule Allah left the universe by itself to run and placed his creations into it like humans, jins or any other kind of life. Allah is just observing from the above how these creations by themselves acts or reacts to this system designed by Allah and one day he would decide to stop the system and then again he would interfere personally and instruct to blow the SUR for Qiyamat to occur . And in between (for saying Kun to the time for instruction of SUR) he really would not be interfering directly into the worldly matters.

Now considering humans only, He has given an instinct to humans to decide by themselves to what is morally right as an action and what is morally wrong as an action. And probably because of this instinct, the intellect and the brain and lots of added feature which probably other creations didn’t have He graded humans as one of the greatest creation and surely the best creation in this world. Now Allah wanted to see how this creations will try to exist in this world. How He ensures that his own existence is not harmful for other humans? If such a human exists who lives his life without causing any significant harm to other fellow humans by his own decision and by his own will, he himself decides that I will not make any action which will be harmful for others. And for this he might need to sacrifice many opportunities in his life. If such a person exists who is so good by himself then of course without doubt he deserves a gift of Jannat and if he does not care for other then of course he deserves nothing but Hell fire.

This would have been the case regardless of the institution of prophethood and divine books. But because even though human is the best creation of all and even though he had power to decide what is right what is wrong he is still not an ideal perfect creation and suffers limitations. Human cannot in any way decide always and every time in every aspect that what is the correct direction. Considering this limitation Allah who loves humans and is merciful decided to interfere into the world but with intention only to guide humans where their limitations does not allow them to take correct decisions. He decided to interfere through those of the creations who by themselves were morally perfect. I mean it was not in a way pre-decided that He would make Jesus or Moses or Mohammad (sws) His messenger. They themselves were so good a moral and religious idea as a human beings and they were so pure of their hearts by themselves that Allah selected them. He decided that His interference in this world would be implemented and communicated to others by these perfect humans. And it was only the time period of these and other Prophets and Messengers that Allah interfered to help and guide human creatures to the right path. It was not right because Allah had said it was but path was already right by itself. Allah just interfered to guide us and inform us that look this is what is actually the right path I am telling you because I am very merciful to you.

I am not a good writer. I hope I am able to communicate my point of view correctly. I would appreciate if you share your view on the question if this view is compatible with the teachings of Islam. I hope you understand that I am not denying Allah’s power. What I feel is that Allah by His own will is not interfering now specially after Muhammad (sws). Surely He has the power to do so and everything He likes.

Answer

Thanks for your e-mail. I am in agreement with many points that you elaborated on. Yes I do agree you that most of what happens around us and in the world are not direct interfere of the Almighty but in fact a chain result of actions and reactions.

What I would like to add is that the mechanism and the logic of these action and reactions too are created by God. Most of the things that you were referring to were in fact creatures and events. We need to add ‘rules’ to the picture of creation as well.

I also agree that recognition of Good and Bad does not need God revelation and certainly agree with you that God has interfered when guidance was needed.

A few minor points to add:

– From the history of Prophets (sws) we can see that God have in deed interfered in matters other than guidance (but related), like punishment of rejecters of His Messengers.

– While I agree with your point in general, we have no reason to deny that God might interfere directly in some affairs other than guidance. Answering some of our prayers is an example.

– The ‘Kun Fayakoon’ expression in the Qur’an does not mean that God makes something directly and with no procedures. It means He does not need any one and is not depending on others in His creation. Therefore even the results of the actions and reactions in this world can be seen as God’s ‘Kun Fayakoon‘.

– The most important element of creation as far as we human beings are concerned is that this world and everything in it with all its rules and complexities have been made in a perfect way to facilitate the test that the human being needs to go through. The action and reactions you referred to are in fact manifestation of this test.

– I do agree that the Prophets (sws) have been selected based on their own qualifications. However, we can also see from the history of Prophets (sws) that at times God interferes to prepare the ground for a person to become a great Prophet (sws), an example is Musa or Jesus (sws). Also many of the Prophets of Bani Israel became qualified while having the advantage of being from a pure family in which the father was a prophet himself (like Isaac, Jacob, Joseph).

– The Prophets (sws) being qualified human beings does not conflict with God knowing who would be a Prophet before hand. As you know the Almighty is All Knowing (Aleem).

– What you said about different levels of stopping some thing wrong comes from Hadith not the Qur’an.

You wrote a long and interesting e-mail, I hope I have not missed any of your points.

Answered by: Farhad Shafti

Date: 2015-02-19