So how is disobedience even a possibility, if GOD’s Power is absolute? The wording of it was not theirs by right to choose provides the key. Many translators render this as “they have no choice,” but this is not accurate. In both verses the phrase ma kana li (mu’min) / ma kana la (hum) expresses not an impossibility, like “never” in English, but rather moral disapproval, or “not by right”. Both verses use choice to describe a disposition, an attitude, or a perspective rather than an act. Just as believers should not choose other than as GOD and His Messenger have decided, so also people in general should not choose other than what your Master wills and chooses. In the first case, someone could choose otherwise (and perhaps lose the designation of “believing man or woman”), and in the second case, someone could also choose otherwise, by disagreeing with GOD’s decree, prompting the exclamation of Transcendent is AL-LAH and High beyond what they associate! What are they associating? Their choice of something else with His choice of what actually is.
By shifting the focus of our freedom from what we effect or cause to what we choose or intend, the Qur’an is helping us to reconcile our demand that humans be morally responsible with our sense that a God Whose Power is limited by anything is not worthy of the name of GOD. AL-LAH must be Absolutely Free of any limit, and yet human law, ethics, and mental health are insistent that to be a mature, rational human being is to have a strong instinct of moral accountability. But what is it that is actually held to account?
How can our acts be blamed if, as GOD says, And GOD created you and what you do (Q37:96)? Or how can our will be faulted if, as GOD says, You do not will except AL-LAH has willed it (Q76:30)? There is something else in play, however, that does require GOD’s Judgement – our judgement.
Say, “Shall we inform you of the greatest losers in their deeds? / Those whose striving went astray in worldly life, and yet they thought that truly they were doing good.” (Q18:103-104)
قُلْ هَلْ نُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِالأَخْسَرِينَ أَعْمَالاً
الَّذِينَ ضَلَّ سَعْيُهُمْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَهُمْ يَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُمْ يُحْسِنُونَ صُنْعًا
Do those who perpetrated evil deeds consider We will make them equal in their life and death to those with faith who did good deeds? How badly do they judge! (Q45:21)
أَمْ حَسِبَ الَّذِينَ اجْتَرَحُوا السَّيِّئَاتِ أَنْ نَجْعَلَهُمْ كَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ سَوَاءً مَحْيَاهُمْ وَمَمَاتُهُمْ سَاءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ
If we judge ourselves to be subservient to GOD’s will, and verify that judgement by acting accordingly, we have, however imperfectly, sought refuge with AL-LAH from our errors and sins. We may even be able, like Khidr, to do what might appear to others to be crimes or mistakes, but I did not do it on my own would apply, and those actions would gain His Mercy instead. Ultimately it is our judgement, or intention, not our acts, that earn GOD’s approval or censure. (See the textbox in Chapter 33 in which this foundation of Qu’ranic morality is contrasted with utilitarianism.) This is confirmed by the centrepiece of Islamic law and the first hadith that new students of Islam are likely to read:
From the Commander of the Believers, Abi Hafsin ‘Umarab-nil-Khattabi (may GOD be pleased with him), who said, “I heard the Messenger of AL-LAH (may GOD bless him and give him peace) say, ‘Actions are only [judged] by intentions, and for every man is only what he intended.’” (Hadith 1, 40 Hadith an-Nawawi)
عَنْ أَمِيرِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَبِي حَفْصٍ عُمَرَ بْنِ الْخَطَّابِ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ قَالَ: سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَقُولُ: إنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى
If we judge ourselves to be free, we will be judged as free beings, fully responsible for our acts. We cannot foist our crimes on GOD because we never intended to submit ourselves to Him.* Believing ourselves to be completely free, or acting as if we are, we throw out His Mercy that normally accompanies His Judgement, and have nothing to turn to in the end but an impersonal book where their deeds they find presented (Q18:49). As ‘Isa (peace be upon him) is quoted as saying in the New Testament: “For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:2)
* How does an individual’s freedom of will coincide with GOD’s omnipotence? – simply by referring to two different levels of reality, the relative and the absolute. If you think you are free to choose, you are operating in the realm of relativity, where such choices are relatively real. If you believe that GOD controls all you do, then you no longer choose to be free of GOD, but rather acquiesce in being free with GOD. The individual will is an illusion, but we will be judged on the strength of our illusions and held accountable to our own standards. You cannot live your life carelessly and then claim to be subjected to GOD’s will and thus free of blame. You enjoyed your illusion of freedom; now be judged by it.
The only autonomy we have – and yet one which is seemingly infinite in scope – is the freedom of our own minds. There we can experience one of three forms of freedom – GOD’s own Freedom, which initially feels like constraint until we actually want what is right, the freedom of illusion, which initially feels like true liberty until we realize how compelling lies become, or one more, namely a nebulous zone of indeterminacy between truth and illusion where most of us spend most of our lives.
Vacillating back and forth, without committing to the one or to the other. He whom GOD misguides, you will not find for him a way. (Q4:143)
مُذَبْذَبِينَ بَيْنَ ذَلِكَ لاَ إِلَى هَؤُلاَءِ وَلاَ إِلَى هَؤُلاَءِ وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ اللَّهُ فَلَنْ تَجِدَ لَهُ سَبِيلاً
In these latter two states we are free to pass judgement on anything, including the very existence of GOD. There (but actually nearer than our ‘here’), and very soon (but actually sooner than we think), GOD is free to judge . . . us.
The GOD You Already Know 