No Fatalism (qada' qadar) In The Quran

My Comments : The following is an essay from The New York Times titled 'Islam's Tragic Fatalism'  by the well known Turkish writer Mustapha Akyol.

Before that, another disaster happened in Mecca yesterday 24 September, 2015. There was a stampede and more than 710 people were trampled to death. 

Just two weeks earlier on 11th September, 2015 a crane crashed in Mecca and killed 117 people. 

An engineer from the crane operator, the Bin Laden group said that it was 'fate' - 'an act of "god" that caused the crane to crash. Meaning it was not their fault.

Mustapha Akyol says in his article that it has now come to light that it was indeed the contractor's fault. They did not observe some safety precautions.  It was not an act of "god".

The religious folks talk about two major sets of 'beliefs'. 

One is called The Five Pillars of Islam (prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, zakat money payments and reciting the shahadah).  

The shahadah and zakat as money payments are not found in the Quran (although the word zakat is mentioned numerous times in the Quran). 

Other than mention of the word salat, the details of prayer are also not found in the Quran at all. 

The pilgrimage is also not fully detailed in the Quran.

Then the religious people also speak of the Six Articles of Faith ie belief in

1. Allah
2. the Messengers
3. the Books
4. the Malaaikah
5. the Last Day and 
6. qada' and qadar (predestination or fatalism). 

 Only the first five are found in the Quran. 

The sixth however is not found in the Quran. 

There is no qada and qadar (predestination or fate) in the Quran. The Quran does not speak about fatalism.

Here is a portion of  Surah 4:136 :

"and whoever disbelieves in Allah, His Malaaikahs, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day has certainly gone far astray."

Only five are mentioned : 1. Allah 2. Malaaikah 3. Books 4. Messengers 5. Last Day

The words qada and qadar cannot be found together in the Quran, especially carrying the meaning predestination or fatalism. 

Ok here is that very short essay by Mustapha Akyol. 

Islam’s Tragic Fatalism

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/opinion/islams-tragic-fatalism.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

SEPT. 23, 2015

Mustafa Akyol

Istanbul — Earlier this month, on the Muslim holy day of Friday, a horrible accident took place in Mecca near Islam’s holiest site — the Kaaba. A huge crane fell on the mosque that encircles the cube-shaped shrine, killing 118 pilgrims and injuring almost 400. This tragedy was the deadliest crane collapse in modern history, and thus it begged for an investigation. 

Yet, in a highly religious country, the technicians that operated the crane, the Saudi Binladen Group, had an easy way out. One of them spoke to the press and simply said: “What happened was beyond the power of humans. It was an act of God.”

To their credit, the Saudi authorities did not buy this argument. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud immediately suspended the company from work, ordered an investigation, and offered compensation for the families of victims. 

The investigators soon concluded that the company was responsible for the accident, because it did not “respect the rules of safety” and violated the manufacturers’ operating instructions.

While this factual investigation is a step forward, we must still ask why the technicians publicly absolved themselves of responsibility, and probably in their own minds as well, by evoking “fate.”

This is not the first time that this metaphysical excuse has come up in such circumstances. 

Worse accidents have happened near the Kaaba before, during the overcrowded season of pilgrimage, the Hajj, and the blame was reflexively placed on the divine. 

In 1990, 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede caused mainly by a lack of ventilation. Nonetheless, the king at the time, Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then argued: “It was God’s will, which is above everything.” “It was fate,” he added.

This isn’t just a Saudi problem; it is a global Muslim problem. Fatalism is constantly used as an excuse for human neglect and errors. 

Even in Turkey, which is much more modern and secular than Saudi Arabia, “fate” has frequently been invoked by various officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as an explanation for colossal accidents on railroads, in coal mines and on construction sites.

In almost every case, however, closer scrutiny has revealed the cause to be Turkey’s poor work safety standards and the government’s sluggishness in improving them. 

Only in February 2015, after hundreds of tragic accidents that killed more than 13,000 workers in 12 years, did Turkey become a party to the International Labor Organization’s conventions on work safety, which were drawn up more than two decades ago and adopted long ago by many other nations.

Accidents, of course, happen everywhere. Yet in the Muslim world, fatalism often serves as a cover for inadequate safety measures or greedy bosses unwilling to pay for them. 

That is why Turkey’s top cleric, Mehmet Gormez, an erudite theologian, felt the need to warn fellow Turks that “Producing excuses about ‘divine power’ for human guilt and responsibility is wrong,” after a Dickensian mine fire killed 301 workers in 2014. 

“The laws of nature are the laws of God. God has given us the ability to understand these laws and asked from us to act accordingly,” Mr. Gormez declared. “What is suitable for God’s will is to take the necessary precautions against the physical causes for disasters.”

This important statement was unmistakably grounded in certain medieval Islamic schools of thought, such as the Maturidis and the Mutazilites, who believed human beings possessed free will and could be “the creator of their own deeds.” They also believed that humans could use reason to interpret scripture and establish moral truths.

But such rationalist Muslim schools had powerful rivals, such as the Asharites and the even more rigid Hanbalis, the precursors of today’s Salafis. These dogmatists played down human free will by emphasizing God’s predestination, and discredited human reason. They also denied the existence of natural laws, assuming that causality is an infringement on God’s omnipotence.

Today most Muslims have little knowledge about these old debates, but they live within cultural codes largely defined by the dogmatists, who gained the upper hand in the war of ideas in early Islam. In these codes, human free will is easily sacrificed to fatalism, science and reason are trivialized, and philosophy is frowned upon.

Consequently, “God’s will” becomes an easy cover for intellectual laziness, lack of planning, and irresponsibility. 

Muslims in positions of power often refer to “fate” to explain away their failures, while never hesitating to take pride in their successes.

Colossal accidents in Mecca and elsewhere must be taken as alarm signals for Muslims to purge our societies of this problematic mentality and seek the great intellectual revival we need. 

Using oil money to import Western (or Far Eastern) technology is not a solution. What matters is gaining the skills to use that technology proficiently, with all the necessary precautions — and maybe one day inventing such technology ourselves.

Ironically, there was once a time when Muslims were the greatest inventors in the world, with towering mathematicians such as Al Khwarizmi (from whose name comes the term “algorithm”), physicians such as Avicenna (the father of modern medicine), or philosophers such as Averroes (who introduced Europe to Aristotle and rational theology). Taking pride in them today, as we sometimes do, is a start.

But the real question is why these thinkers’ ideas have had a greater impact on Western culture than on Islamic thought? And why have they been marginalized or branded heretical in the lands where they originated? Our past heresies could be exactly what we need to open our minds today.

Concluding remarks :  "  and seek the great intellectual revival we need " ? ? ?

My view is that under the tutelage of the mullahs the Muslims will never achieve even a small intellectual revival.  

The problem is the mullahs and their mullah beliefs.  

I wish to repeat an old story here. Once I was driving out from my wife's home in Terasek in Bangsar Baru when I saw a small boy being attacked by a neighbor's dog. The boy ran towards the nearest house for help. He had his back against the closed gates of the house. 

I got down from my car and went to help the child. Despite shooing the dog away, the animal kept coming for the boy.  It tried to bite the boy and I had to kick the dumb animal.  Then I realised why the dog kept coming for the boy.  The dog lived in that house.  It was the dog's house.  The boy had picked the wrong house to run for help. He had run to the dog's house. Having realised the problem, the solution was simple - I took the boy away from the house. The dog calmed down. End of problem.

This is the problem with the Muslims. They are in trouble because they listen to the idiotic mullahs. The mullahs are the cause of their problems. 

Unfortunately even when they realise they are in trouble, the Muslims keep running back to the mullahs to sort out their problems.  They keep running to the source of their problems to solve their problems.  Like the little boy running to the dog's house looking for help. 

This is jumping straight into the fire. 

You listen to the mullahs and you will burn, literally. Dont believe me?  Just look at the countries that are literally burning to the ground today -  Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan  are all fighting and bombing each other to death mainly because of religious and sectarian differences.

And who teaches  these sectarian hatreds and perpetuates these religious hatreds? Donald Duck? Mickey Mouse? 

Its the mullahs.  They are the source of the problem. I dont know how many more centuries it is going to take for the Muslims to realise this.   Its your choice.  You want to be stupid, it is up to you. You want to suffer, it is up to you. 

Dont blame the West, the Jews, the Christians or the neigbor's cat or dog for your problems.  Please try to grow up as well - maybe by the end of this century.