All religions and cultures have some major positions about the human being, his or her place in the world, freedom of will, and choice. There are more democratized teachings that accept the freedom of will and choice for human beings and pose responsibility for their virtue or sinfulness on each individual. However, some stricter teachings do not recognize the right of the human being to free will and choice and dictate the major rules for existence, thus creating the guiding line for social, private, and religious life that has to be pursued disregarding individual incentives, wishes, and inclinations. Islam has traditionally been considered one of the strictest religions that limit the life of Muslims to the will of God. Several provisions in the Quran discuss the freedom of will and recognize it in specific Islamic terms.
The Islamic view of the human being differs greatly from other religions, namely Christianity that considers people initially born as sinful (Noebel). Islam dictates that everything in the world is perfect because it is created by Allah; thus, a human being is pure, sinless, and inclined to virtue from the very birth. Sin is not a hereditary or communal concept, neither is Islam strongly focused on individuals. The very teaching of Islam is based on the assumption that all people are susceptible to corruption, but at the same time, they can reform and save themselves (Noebel). In this aspect the central concepts in Islam are the primordial human nature (fitrah) and the ‘self’, or ‘soul’ (nafs); they are good in their initial virtuous shape, like everything else in the world, but sin comes from the misuse of the right to free choice and vicious inclinations (Coward, p. 85). The human nature fitra is seen as having three major properties: human knowledge, ethical and moral principles, and psychological properties. In infancy, they are all potential properties of human beings, and it is up to an individual which path to choose and whether to obtain these properties in practice or not (Coward, p. 85). Thus, pursuing the logic of the Quran, human beings are granted with their free will to direct their effort on pursuing the will of God and obtaining virtues given to them by nature.
The basis of every religion is recognizing the free will of the human being because without it the religion would lose its sense. Even Islam with its strong regulatory statements of Quran recognizes the essential role of free will and choice for Muslims, which is considered by Abdalati:
“Man is a free agent endowed with a free will. This is the essence of his humanity and the basis of his responsibility to his Creator. Without man’s relative free will life would be meaningless and God’s covenant with a man would be in vain. Without human free will, God would be defeating His purpose and man would be completely incapable of bearing any responsibility” (qtd. In Noebel).
The free choice is concentrated on nafs that a human being has, according to Quran: nafs can be good or bad, and it is up to an individual whether to strive towards the higher potentials of his or her nafs or to keep to the lower ones (Fatoohi). The starting point is the Islamic aim of life – the union with the Creator, and the success of the human life is evaluated in correspondence to the extent of the rightfulness of his/her activities, their compliance with the life aim. Consequently, there are different states of nafs depending on the measure of the individual’s unity with Allah:
- Nafs Ammara is the lowest level of nafs; it is also called the commanding or lower self. The individual with nafs ammara is subject to his/her animal desires and physical instincts, without thinking about consequences; thus, negative drives control the human being (Fatoohi).
- Nafs Lawwama is the reproaching self; it is the state of remorse and realization of sins committed, awareness of wrong-doing, and desire of taking action to correct mistakes (Fatoohi).
- Nafs Mutmainnah is the highest level of nafs recognized as the peaceful self; only the individual living according to the will of God and acting in pursuance with the way to perfection and wisdom dictated by Allah can find him- or herself in the state of peace and happiness (Fatoohi).
As it comes from the present classification, Islam dictates the free will in realizing the level of nafs the person has and finding ways to self-improvement, virtue, and peace. To accomplish that goal, one has to activate nafs lawwama first to recognize the wrongfulness of his/her actions, and to control nafs ammara to avoid temptation for sinful behavior (Fatoohi).
However, the major discrepancy in Islam about the freedom of will is the ambiguity of certain statements of the Quran, some of which presuppose that the human being is the master of his life and chooses ways to go through the life path independently. At the same time, other statements regulate the freedom of choice by the will of God and impose Allah’s omnipotent power over human lives. For example, the Quran says: “And who God shall be pleased to guide, that man’s breast will be open to Islam; but who he shall please to mislead, straight and narrow he makes his breast” (Quaran 6:125). At the same time, the Quran condemns excessive self-regulation for the sake of salvation and dictates harmony and balance between physical instincts and spiritual path to perfection, for example, the relationships between men and women are viewed as a blessing, as a morally right and even necessary element of Muslims’ life (Fatoohi):
“And among His signs is this, that He created for you spouses from among yourselves, that you may find repose in them, and He has put between you love and mercy. Verily in that are indeed signs for people who reflect.” (Quran 30:21).
Historically, there have been several trends in the interpretation of free will and choice written in the Quran. The earliest movement was Mu’tazilites accepted the idea of Al-Ash’ari that humans have free will to choose between right and wrong, but good and evil are still predetermined by God (Coward, p, p. 87). Al-Ghazali assumed the perfect rightness of the world, but again, only as God created it. So they challenged any space that could exist for human free will under such conditions. The thinkers generated a theory that the world initially included both perfection and imperfection, so people only see the grades of perfection (Coward 93). God gave humans the power of knowledge and understanding, and then gave them the knowledge of the perfect transmitted to them by prophets and the way to achieve it. Thus, human living should be aimed at moving to perfection with the help of God or at their free will; this was the concept of free will within the framework of the Quran.
Although the Islamic psychology of free will and choice is represented as a highly virtuous, harmonious issue, there still are numerous researchers and theorists who see the signs of despotism, determinism, and fatalism in the restrictions of Islam (Marwaha, p. 176). God is seen as a great, pantheistically absolute, leaving no space for humans; good and evil come directly from Allah, so there is no hope for free will as it sinks under the pressure of greatness and omnipotence of God (Marwaha, p. 176). Freedom in Islam is seen by some as a freedom to act but not the freedom to choose, and the principle of ‘will of God’ is left as the only guiding rule in all Muslims’ life. The social role of Muslims is also predetermined by the will of God, which may be seen from the continuation of obedient tradition in madrasas, the schools where children are taught to understand the Quran and to obey its statements (Marwaha, p. 179).
Instead of a conclusion, it appears essential to find out what the true place of the Quran and Allah is in Islam about free will and choice. Despite the widely spread opinions on the despotism and limitations of the Quran posed on individuals and depriving them of any free will, the Islamic position about Quran is the one of a warner and awakener, the call to people’s primordial nature that may be lost in social conditions (Coward, p. 86). Muslims live according to the will of the omnipotent God and obey His will, otherwise being led to evil. The situation in which Muslims forget the statements of the Quran is regarded as the turn to the human-animal part (Charizma) usually helping in perfection but incites to evil in some cases (Coward, p. 86). Hence, it is possible to suppose that surely free will is more limited in Islam than in other religions; Muslims live in the context of life predetermination. However, there are many freedoms presupposed for the human being under Quran that is not allowed by other religions, so it is possible to state that Islam has been created as a wide framework giving space for free will and choice within the measures of virtuous conduct and life.
Works Cited
- Coward, G. Harold. The perfectibility of human nature in eastern and western thought. SUNY Press, 2008.
- Fatoohi, Louay. ‘Towards Islamic Psychology’. Quranic Studies. 2003.
- Marwaha, Sonali Bhatt. Colors of truth: religion, self and emotions : perspectives of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Sikhism and contemporary psychology. Concept Publishing Company, 2006.
- Noebel, David. Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews (Rev. 2nd ed), Summit Press, 2006.