Page 53 - Pure Life 39

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28 / International Multidisciplinary Journal of Pure Life, 11(39), 2024
Then he said, “I found the son of
Adam between God and Satan. If God
loves him, He purifies and selects him,
otherwise, He leaves him to his
enemy” (Ibn Bābawayh, 2019, p. 366).
This tradition emphasizes that
divine decree and predestination in no
way cause laziness; rather, action is the
executor of predestination, similar to
the relationship between the soul and
the body. The soul without the body
has no movement or perfection, and the
body without the soul is dry and
perishes. Another point is that just as in
the relationship between the soul and
the body, the soul is primary, here too,
it seems that action is primary, and
predestination revolves around action.
In explaining the phrase ‘and God
aids His righteous servants in this,’ we
can refer to the words of Lady Fatimah
al-Zahra , who said, “Whoever sends up
to God the purest of his worship, God
will send down to him the best of his
benefit” (Majlisī, 2012, Vol. 67, p. 249).
It is worth mentioning that the
Umayyads, including Muawiyah and
his son, imposed the ideology of
determinism on the people of Sham to
expand their power and rule.
According to this ideology, they
instilled in the people the belief that
whatever happens to you is the
inevitable will and decree of God,
which cannot be contested, and that it
is God’s will for us to rule over you!
However, the Commander of the
Faithful , in the previously mentioned
narration (the fourth narration), provides
a clear response to the ideology of
determinism and explicitly rejects the
deterministic interpretation of divine
decree and predestination. In part of this
same narration, the Commander of the
Faithful, Ali , refers to the Qadariyyah as
the Magians of the Ummah and describes
the belief in the absolute and necessary
divine decree regarding human actions as
the words of the brothers of idolaters, the
army of Satan, and the enemies of God
(Ṭabarsī, 1996, Vol. 1, p. 209; Majlisī,
2012, Vol. 5, p. 95).
Thus, divine decree and predestination,
and human action are like the soul and the
body; without accepting divine decree and
predestination, no order is established, and
no ground for voluntary action is created.
Resolving the Conflict
In studying these narrations, it is
necessary to consider some verses of the
Holy Quran. The Quran states, “… and
cast not yourselves to perdition with your
own hands…” (The Qur’an, 2: 195).
Here, some questions arise as follows:
• Are the mentioned cases, such as
fighting without proper attire, examples
of ‘throwing oneself into destruction?’
• Does the infallible Imam use
knowledge of the unseen in ordinary
circumstances, or only in specific cases?
• Are the instances mentioned in the
above narrations examples of
ordinary situations?