Page 61 - Islam and Karma

Concepts of Fate in the Karma Belief System and in the Qur'an

judgement comes from no one but Allah. In Him I put my trust,
and let all those who put their trust, put it in Him alone”. (Surah
Yusuf: 67)
As we see in this verse, Ya’qub advises his sons to take precau-
tions for their safety, but immediately after this he says that taking
these precautions will not prevent the destiny that Allah has willed
from being fulfilled. Actually, Ya’qub's words to his sons, his sons' act-

ing in accordance with his advice and everything that will happen to
them as a result are nothing more than the unfolding in time of what
is present with Allah beyond time.
In the next verse, it is explained to us that these precautions can-
not change Allah's will:
But when they entered as their father said, it did not save them
from Allah at all, yet a need in Ya‘qub’s soul was satisfied. He had
knowledge which We had taught him, but most of mankind sim-
ply do not know. (Surah Yusuf: 68)

This verse tells us that we have no power to prevent anything
from happening that Allah sends us. All we can do is pray to Him and
seek His blessing, so that He will use our precautions as a means of
carrying out His will and bring us the best possible outcome.
To sum up, the difference between someone who has submitted
to Allah and the destiny decreed by Him, and someone who is unable
to perceive the reality of the situation is that the former is aware that

whatever we do is the result of Allah's will however much we may ex-
perience it as our own independent initiative; while on the other hand,
the person who is not aware of this mistakenly believes that our ac-
tions originate in our own wisdom and our own abilities. In fact,
"Allah’s command is a pre-ordained decree”. (Surat al-Ahzab: 38).

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