I confess, I did not prepare anything to present to you, so I hope this will suffice…

As-salaamu aleikum brothers and sisters,

I have philosophy classes in which I usually get asked about Islam and rulings, beliefs etc., since I’m the only one in the whole school who uses hijab.

We studied philoshophy theories; 1)determinism and 2)indeterminism

1. According to Determinism a person has no free will, meaning everything happens in life inevitably. This believes in fate.

2. Indeterminism mean that there are things that one has free will in, except in thigs such as birthday.

Now I was asked if we believe that Allah has already determined everything ,He is All-knowing Allwise?

I said that yes we do believe in fate, it is one of the things that we have to believe in including angels, day of Resurruction etc. But fate is determined by our free will.

What do you think? What would’ve you answered?

I will be the first to advise you to stay away from philosophy and astrology. We do not have in-depth knowledge, and this will only corrupt our minds. We believe in Allah through His creations. End of story.

I also studied determinism/indeterminism/free will. If you’d like my essays on it from the college class, please PM me.

By the way, I think you got your definitions mixed up.

Determinism is, “Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. “Free Will and Determinism”) An event is the cause or effect of another, and the chain of life continues thus. It’s much similar to the animal food chain, and how it circles around and around. Definitely, all people have free will and the ability to decide. The worldly dimension where we humans are known to live in is a planet of cause and effect, where everything we decide to do plays a role to what will happen in the future. Often, free will is confused with abilities and laws. In religious terms, those who believe in monotheism hold that each human is on his own accord and are fully responsible for his actions.

Indeterminism are actions performed based on complete randomness. We do not have any reason to understand why we performed what we did. As humans, we know the consequences and we know what we do has a result.

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Now, to conclude… In Islam, we believe Allah Ta’ala knows everything. Yet we live this life according to our own actions. Don’t ask why. This is the circle of life. Or actually, pose this question to your local scholar. I’m sure he can give a better answer.

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