Most people believe in imperatives that must happen sooner or later. Sometimes they are historical imperatives, and sometimes they are divine religious imperatives. For example, many people believe that history repeats itself, although history cannot repeat itself, because it is a societal march that does not stop moving, affected by many factors that none of them can control. On the other hand, Muslims and Christians believe in the end of the world and life after a while as stated in the Holy Books, although many predictions about the imminent end of the world and life have come and gone over and over and nothing has happened. But when a person believes in a historical or religious inevitability, his interest usually focuses on the expected end and not on reality, which leads him to employ every significant change that occurs in the world at the service of the expected end, and to convince himself that every extraordinary development that occurs around him is a sign that confirms it and predicts its imminent occurrence.
When a person believes in historical, religious, and scientific imperatives that he cannot evade from the entitlements of any of them, the time he devotes to managing his daily affairs becomes, in many cases, less than the time devoted to preparing himself to receive the inevitable end. Which leads some to mortgage their lives for an unseen and uncertain future. This makes the concerned person turn into a person with a weak will, weak in the ability to think logically and manage the affairs of his daily life rationally. By looking at every event as part of the signs of the end, this believer unconsciously falsifies many facts, and fabricates others in order to convince himself and those with whom he is talking to the beliefs he believes in that are, in fact, closer to myth than to science or truth. By falsifying the facts, the believer falsifies his awareness, plots against himself, and lives an unproductive life with little connection to reality.
Living a life together makes it necessary for the believer to look at the imperatives as possibilities that may happen soon or may not happen at all, and he must think carefully about the percentage of possibilities and determine whether they are large or small. If the percentage is large, then he must prepare for what he expects of events seriously, and if the percentage is weak, then he must forget it and live his life as if it did not exist or is possible, especially if human experience has not witnessed anything like it before, or that science does not place it among the expected possibilities. For example, Karl Marx predicted the collapse of capitalism at the hands of the industrial workers class and the elimination of private ownership of the means of production, while the developments at the end of the last century came to enable the capitalist system to triumph over the Marxist system, undermine the effectiveness of the working and middle classes in society, and enable the rich and powerful to acquire political power, money and the causes of power in almost every country. Although belief in fate and destiny is the most important imperative that most Muslims consider a settled issue, no Muslim knows what God has destined for him in this world, and whether what is destined for him will come without thinking and action, or whether it will be the result of what he will do of his own free will in his life. Let’s look at this story that deals with the problem of fate and destiny in a way that forces us to think about it a lot.
The story says that while a fisherman was sailing his small boat in the open sea, a severe storm arose, causing his boat to smash and fall into the sea. But one of the fishermen who survived the storm rushed to the rescue of his colleague when he saw him about to drown. But when the fisherman offered his fellow fisherman to climb into his boat, the first fisherman refused, saying that I did not want anyone’s help because God had promised me that He would help me if I ever needed help. After about an hour, another fisherman came to him, who saw him almost in a state of conflict, but the fisherman repeated the same phrase: I do not want help from anyone because my God promised me that he would help me if I needed help. And when he was about to die, he said, addressing his Lord: Why did you not help me, my God, when you promised me that? God replied to him, saying: Didn’t I send you hunters who offered you help twice? Don’t you know that these people could not have found you if I had not made their way past where you are?
This means that a believer in fate and destiny can view fate as part of our thinking, daily activities, management of our usual life affairs, and our dealings with other people. Destiny is not a blessing or a curse from God that reaches us in unseen ways that we do not understand and that we are not able to understand. This obliges us to surrender to a destiny that we do not understand, and it is not permissible for us to doubt it or ask questions about it. But in the event that we believe that what God has destined for us must come through our work and managing the affairs of our daily lives and obtaining knowledge, experience and sincerity in work, then this makes us able to influence life and its data, and thus actively participate in making our destiny. This will enable us to create a better future for ourselves and our descendants after us, and provide invaluable scientific, intellectual, artistic, cultural and economic experiences and achievements for future generations.
Every inevitability for a simple believer is a destiny that cannot be changed or evaded in any way, but it is a possibility for every scientist and sane person who uses his mind. It is just an assumption that cannot be proven for every thinker and philosopher. As a result, the first behaves as if he is a slave to an unseen superpower over which he has no control and has no right to question it for what it does, while the second behaves as if he is free in what he does with his recognition of the existence of forces beyond his control that force him to prepare to deal with them rationally when they challenge him.
Professor Mohamed Rabie
www.yazour.com
Most people believe in imperatives that must happen sooner or later. Sometimes they are historical imperatives, and sometimes they are divine religious imperatives. For example, many people believe that history repeats itself, although history cannot repeat itself, because it is a societal march that does not stop moving, affected by many factors that none of them can control. On the other hand, Muslims and Christians believe in the end of the world and life after a while as stated in the Holy Books, although many predictions about the imminent end of the world and life have come and gone over and over and nothing has happened. But when a person believes in a historical or religious inevitability, his interest usually focuses on the expected end and not on reality, which leads him to employ every significant change that occurs in the world at the service of the expected end, and to convince himself that every extraordinary development that occurs around him is a sign that confirms it and predicts its imminent occurrence.
When a person believes in historical, religious, and scientific imperatives that he cannot evade from the entitlements of any of them, the time he devotes to managing his daily affairs becomes, in many cases, less than the time devoted to preparing himself to receive the inevitable end. Which leads some to mortgage their lives for an unseen and uncertain future. This makes the concerned person turn into a person with a weak will, weak in the ability to think logically and manage the affairs of his daily life rationally. By looking at every event as part of the signs of the end, this believer unconsciously falsifies many facts, and fabricates others in order to convince himself and those with whom he is talking to the beliefs he believes in that are, in fact, closer to myth than to science or truth. By falsifying the facts, the believer falsifies his awareness, plots against himself, and lives an unproductive life with little connection to reality.
Living a life together makes it necessary for the believer to look at the imperatives as possibilities that may happen soon or may not happen at all, and he must think carefully about the percentage of possibilities and determine whether they are large or small. If the percentage is large, then he must prepare for what he expects of events seriously, and if the percentage is weak, then he must forget it and live his life as if it did not exist or is possible, especially if human experience has not witnessed anything like it before, or that science does not place it among the expected possibilities. For example, Karl Marx predicted the collapse of capitalism at the hands of the industrial workers class and the elimination of private ownership of the means of production, while the developments at the end of the last century came to enable the capitalist system to triumph over the Marxist system, undermine the effectiveness of the working and middle classes in society, and enable the rich and powerful to acquire political power, money and the causes of power in almost every country. Although belief in fate and destiny is the most important imperative that most Muslims consider a settled issue, no Muslim knows what God has destined for him in this world, and whether what is destined for him will come without thinking and action, or whether it will be the result of what he will do of his own free will in his life. Let’s look at this story that deals with the problem of fate and destiny in a way that forces us to think about it a lot.
The story says that while a fisherman was sailing his small boat in the open sea, a severe storm arose, causing his boat to smash and fall into the sea. But one of the fishermen who survived the storm rushed to the rescue of his colleague when he saw him about to drown. But when the fisherman offered his fellow fisherman to climb into his boat, the first fisherman refused, saying that I did not want anyone’s help because God had promised me that He would help me if I ever needed help. After about an hour, another fisherman came to him, who saw him almost in a state of conflict, but the fisherman repeated the same phrase: I do not want help from anyone because my God promised me that he would help me if I needed help. And when he was about to die, he said, addressing his Lord: Why did you not help me, my God, when you promised me that? God replied to him, saying: Didn’t I send you hunters who offered you help twice? Don’t you know that these people could not have found you if I had not made their way past where you are?
This means that a believer in fate and destiny can view fate as part of our thinking, daily activities, management of our usual life affairs, and our dealings with other people. Destiny is not a blessing or a curse from God that reaches us in unseen ways that we do not understand and that we are not able to understand. This obliges us to surrender to a destiny that we do not understand, and it is not permissible for us to doubt it or ask questions about it. But in the event that we believe that what God has destined for us must come through our work and managing the affairs of our daily lives and obtaining knowledge, experience and sincerity in work, then this makes us able to influence life and its data, and thus actively participate in making our destiny. This will enable us to create a better future for ourselves and our descendants after us, and provide invaluable scientific, intellectual, artistic, cultural and economic experiences and achievements for future generations.
Every inevitability for a simple believer is a destiny that cannot be changed or evaded in any way, but it is a possibility for every scientist and sane person who uses his mind. It is just an assumption that cannot be proven for every thinker and philosopher. As a result, the first behaves as if he is a slave to an unseen superpower over which he has no control and has no right to question it for what it does, while the second behaves as if he is free in what he does with his recognition of the existence of forces beyond his control that force him to prepare to deal with them rationally when they challenge him.
Professor Mohamed Rabie
www.yazour.com
