On this view, the apparent contradiction between the freedom with
which man is credited and the destiny to which he is supposed to be
subject disappears. Destiny must not be understood in the sense
that each and every act of man is predetermined and preordained.
The Qur'an does not lend support to the belief that what man
becomes – a saint or a villain – does not depend on his free choice
but on the decrees of an impersonal inexorable Fate. In the Qur'an's
scale, destiny is not synonymous with necessity (or fatality, as they
generally call it); it only denotes the range and reach of his
capacities. It indicates in what directions he can go. How far he can
go is determined by his destiny; how far he will go depends on
himself alone. God does not dictate to man what objective he
should have; He just gives him the helping hand in his efforts to
attain the goal he has set for himself. Iqbal has expressed this
relationship in a poem of exquisite beauty. We give the translation
of a few lines from it:
The secret of the Ego's destiny is unfolded in these words:
'If thou changest, it changes in relation to thee.
If thou feelest like dust, it consigns thee to the wind.
Wantest thou to be a stone? It hurls thee against glassware.
Art thou a dew-drop? Thou art destined to fall downwards.
Dost thou become an ocean? Permanence is thy destiny.’(2)
We see, therefore, that in the sphere of free egos, the Divine Will
operates as a directive agency, a guiding force. The Qur'an
designates this function of the Divine Will as "amr." If we ask in
what form this guidance is made available to us, the Qur'an replies
that it is provided in the Revelation:
This is Allah's "Amr" which He has revealed unto you (65:5).
The physical world is subject to inflexible laws which reflect the
Divine Will in its aspect of "khalq"; "amr" is the source of moral
laws which have meaning for and are obligatory on only a free self.
By acting in conformity with the "amr," man creates values and
appropriates them. When he dies, man does not shed the values he
has realised during his earthly life. They are carried over and remain
an integral part of the self, fitting it to function on the different
plane of existence which it has entered. Values are imperishable.
God not only guards and protects but enhances them for the benefit
of the ego which has produced them through its own efforts.
The Working of the Divine Law 146