Some people try to shift the blame for their lack of faith away from themselves. They like to think that it is God’s will that they should be disobedient to Him, or unbelievers. They say: "Had it been God’s will for us to be believers, He would have guided us to believe." In saying so, they confuse issues.

[The verse 99 read with verse 100 of Surah 10 may be rendered in translation as:

Had your Lord willed (that all the people of the world should be believers) all the dwellers of the earth would have believed in Him. Will you, then, force the people to become believers? No one can believe without Allah's permission and Allah's way is that He throws filth on those who do not use their commonsense.

What these verses contain is the firm statement of the Authority of Allah and His Power, which cannot be denied. It cannot be construed to mean that Allah has predetermined the faith of His creatures. ]

If we were to say that it is God who makes a person believe or disbelieve, then we are saying that He predetermines that some of His creatures will suffer in hell by His will, while others will enjoy heaven by His will. That makes the destiny of mankind beyond their control, or, in other words, the result of God’s predetermination. That would lead us to ask how justice is done when people have no control over their fate? The fact is that people do have that control, because they take the actions which leads them to either heaven or hell. It is a human being’s own choice whether to be a believer or not. God has given us guidance, and placed numerous pointers and indicators in the world around us.

He has also made us all equally susceptible to belief. It is in our nature that we should seek to know Him and to believe in Him. He has also given us our free will so that we determine our choice whether to accept His faith, which He has given us through His messengers.

Moreover, God gives every person a number of occasions when the issues of life and faith are clear in front of his eyes. If in spite of all this a person denies Him, then he does so by his own will. He deserves the fate he is certain to experience.

Now, is a human being’s will limited or unlimited?

The answer is that it is free in certain matters and restricted in others. It is not within man’s ability not to be influenced by the world around him and the natural phenomena that are in his environment. Moreover, his choices are limited by the abilities he has been given. A human being may wish to fly but he cannot do that, no matter how strong is his will to do so. But in matter of belief and actions, his will is certainly free. Hence, it is only fair that his destiny should be determined on the basis of his choice.

God addresses the people of heaven saying:

"This is heaven which you have inherited as a result of what you used to do."

Sometimes people find it easy to put the blame on Allah's will for what happens to them through their own faults. The example you have mentioned is a typical one. A person may be warned once or twice by his employers about negligence, but pays no heed. Eventually he finds himself out of job. He then starts to justify the whole thing as something that would have happened anyway, because it is Allah's will which cannot be stopped. But what is Allah's will in the matter?

What we have to understand is that Allah has placed man on earth and charged him with the task of building human life. He had given him his freedom of choice which makes him able to choose, in any situation, his course of action. This ability of man is part of Allah's will. Hence, it has to operate in human life. If it did not, then man would have been exactly like animals who have no say in how they live and how they are affected by the world around them. Allah has also willed that the law of cause and effect will operate to the full in human life. Thus, if a man exposes himself to severe wintry weather, he gets cold and he feels himself in need of having a fire or a source of heating nearby. It is Allah's will which makes man affected by weather conditions. It is also Allah's will to give man the ability to think about what sort of action he could take to reduce the severity of the situation in which he finds himself. He thus thinks about having some sort of heating. It is Allah’s' will to make the man able to decide whether to switch the heating on or not. But whether man chooses to switch it on or not is his own action, determined by his free choice. If he does, he gets warmer. If he does not, he continues to suffer in the cold. There maybe some constraints which motivate man to act in a certain fashion, but it is he who weighs up the possibilities open to him and makes his own decision. If a man decides not to switch his heater on, he cannot blame Allah's will for being cold.

You can say the same thing about almost everything in life. A person who stays at home doing nothing will earn no wages from anywhere. He cannot blame Allah or His will for not having enough to live on. It is his own decision not to go out to work and, consequently, not have any wages. Had he sought some employment or started some trade and, having had it, continued to discharge his duties and do his work to the best of his ability, he would have his salary or profit, as the case may be. It is Allah's will to organize human life in such a way as to make work a means to earn a livelihood. But it is a man's choice whether to work or not.

We have to differentiate here between what Allah knows beforehand of what will happen to us during our lifetime and what He has predestined for us. He has certainly determined in advance the life duration of every one of us. He has written when and how each one of us dies. According to an authentic Hadith, when a human being is still an embryo in his mother's belly, an angel is sent to him to breathe spirit into him. The angel also writes down his life duration, livelihood and whether he will come out of this life happy or miserable. But this does not mean a predestination with regard to what a person may earn in his life. This is only a reference to Allah's advance knowledge of what will happen to each one of us. As you realize, time, as we know it, does not apply to Allah. The succession of night and day, by which we calculate months, years, etc. is a natural phenomenon caused by the position of the earth in relation to the sun and the fact that the earth is in a continuous movement round itself and, at the same time, moves in orbit around the sun. Hence, time is a very accidental phenomenon. It does not apply to Allah.

Allah's foreknowledge of a man's livelihood does not mean that a man will end up having the same amount of money, whether he works or not. To believe this is to take a very naive attitude. The fact is that man's earnings are dependent on his work, but Allah who has full knowledge of everything knows in advance what sort of work every person will do and how much he will earn for it. The knowledge of Allah does not impose on a man a certain level of earnings.

When we say that everything comes from Allah, we mean two things: Allah knows of it before it takes place and it happens according to the laws of nature Allah has set in operation. Our actions, however, are done by us. Hence, we are accountable for what we do. We cannot put the blame on Allah for our wrong actions. It is we who take such action and we are responsible for them. Allah, however, has created us and He created the world in which we live and has given us our minds to think, reflect and decide what actions to take. He has told us that stabbing a person with a knife close to his heart or in his abdomen may result in his death. Therefore, if a person stabs another and kills him, he may face the capital punishment for the murder he has committed. He cannot defend himself by saying that this has come from Allah. Allah has made the law which causes the death of a person when he is stabbed in these areas. But the stabbing was an action taken freely by the person who has committed it. Hence, he is accountable for it. The same applies to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. The Iraqi ruler took his decision when he was conscious of its effects. He is, accountable for it. We cannot condone his actions as something that has come from Allah. It is his own doing.