Page 92 - Timelessness and the Reality of Fate

90 TIMELESSNESS AND THE REALITY OF FATE

ing they can do. It is true that everything we experience is determined in our
destiny. Before we experienced an occurrence, it has been experienced in
Allah's Sight and is written in all its details in the Mother of the Book (Lawh
Mahfuz) in Allah's Sight. But Allah gives everyone the sense that he can
change things and make his own choices and decisions. For example, when
a person wants to drink some water, he does not say "If it is my destiny I will
drink", and sit down without making any move. Instead, he gets up, takes a
glass and drinks the water. Actually, he drinks a predetermined amount of
water from a predetermined glass. But as he does this, he senses that he is
acting according to his own desire and will. He senses this throughout his
life in everything that he does. The difference between a person who sub-
mits himself to Allah and to the destiny created by Allah, and someone who
cannot grasp this reality is this: the person who submits himself to Allah
knows that everything he does is according to the will of Allah despite the
sense that he has done it himself. The other person mistakenly assumes that
he has done everything with his own intelligence and power.

For example, when a person who has submitted himself to Allah learns
that he has contracted a disease, knows that the disease is in his destiny and
he trusts in Allah. He thinks that because Allah has put it in his destiny, it
will certainly bring him great good. But he does not wait without taking any
measures thinking that if he is destined to get better he will get better. On
the contrary, he takes all possible precautions; he goes to a doctor, pays
attention to his diet and takes medicine. But he does not forget that the effec-
tiveness of the doctor, the treatment, the medicine, as well as whether or not
he will get better are all in his destiny. He knows that all this is in Allah's
sublime memory and was present there even before he came into the world.
In the Qur'an, Allah reveals that everything that human beings experience is
written beforehand in a book:
Nothing occurs, either in the earth or in yourselves, without its being in a
Book before We make it happen. That is something easy for Allah. That is
so that you will not be grieved about the things that may have escaped you
or exult about the things that come to you. Allah does not love any vain or
boastful man. (Surat al-Hadid: 22-23)

For this reason, anyone who believes in destiny will not be troubled or
despair about things that happen to him. On the contrary, he will have the
utmost trust and confidence in his submission to Allah. Allah has deter-