[10][11][12][13] In Islam, "predestination" is the usual English language rendering of a belief that Muslims call al-qaḍāʾ wa l-qadar ([ælqɑˈdˤɑːʔ wælˈqɑdɑr] القضاء والقدر).
Based on what has been preserved of the poetry of pre-Islamic Arabs, it is thought that they believed that the date of the person's death (ajal), was predetermined "no matter what he or she did".
[18] The concept of ajal is also found in the Quran in several verses, especially one revealed in reply to criticism of Muḥammad's military strategy (go out to Mount Uhud to fight when Muslims were attacked in Medina by the Meccans) that some Muslims complained led to unnecessary loss of life: (The verse expresses a different point of view—that acts are not predetermined, but their outcome is—than the later theological position that God knows/determines everything that happens.
)[18] The Qurʾān also speaks specifically of the supply of rizq, or provision being in God control: The question of how to reconcile God's absolute power with human responsibility for their actions, led to "one of the earliest sectarian schisms" in Islam, between the Qadarites (aka Qadariyah), who believed in total free will of humans (and who appeared in Damascus around the end of the seventh century CE);[19] and the Jabriyya, who believed in "absolute" divine "determinism and fatalism".
[6] One statement of the Qadarite school doctrine (Kitābu-l Milal wal Niḥal by Al Mahdi lidin Allah Ahmad b. Yaḥyā b. Al Murtaḍā (a.h. 764–840)) arguing against determinism stated: Ma'bad al-Juhani (d.699 CE), was considered as the forerunner of the predestination rejectionists in Islamic community as he questioned the essence of Fate.
[18] The Mu‘tazili school argued that since justice (‘adl) is "the true essence" of divinity, "God can only do and only wishes what is salutary for human beings".
[23] After the dispute between the Qadarites and Jabarites, majority of Muslims community at that time followed the middle path dictated by the Quran and Sunnah, "between the two extremes".
[24] Al-Shahrastani explained that the first group was the first generation was consisted of Ja'd ibn Dirham and his successors, who completely rejected Indeterminism of mortal's will.
[26] Recently in modern era, the Hanbali school fatwa site IslamQA stated that predestination is one of those issues which God urges Muslims to not delve too much; including the fate of person's if he or she would enter heaven or hell.
[46] Catherine Smith, an anthropologist and Ethnographist who researched about Aceh Muslim society which afflicted by 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami trauma; has illustrated the concept of Qada and Qadar based on her interviews with the local Muslims, who regards the Tsunami disaster (and other retroactive inevitable experience such as death) as a "Qada"; or fixed destiny which should be accepted as inevitable, while Qadar was something to be strived upon since its result still indeterminate from the perspective of human.
[36] Furthermore, Salih as-Sadlan from Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University gave the example from a hadith authored by Salman the Persian which stated "a supplication could prolong one's lifespan".
[36] Al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya (The creed of Al-Tahawi) warns "that providence" (the seeming conflict of divine decree with human free will) is such a secret that even God's most obedient and holy creatures were not let in on the mystery.
[citation needed] However, according to Encyclopedia.com (drawing from W. Montgomery Watt and Asma Afsaruddin), contemporary Imāmīs, aka Twelver Shi'a, "in general, subscribe to the doctrine of divine determination with a nod in the direction of free will; Ismāʿīlī views are not dissimilar.
[18] Some positions taken by leading Shi'i scholars (quotes from Maria De Cillis) include: The idea of "a tablet" with the future written on it is not unique to Sunni Islam as one Twelver Shi'i scholar (Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid d.1022), claiming that "the Tablet is the Book of Almighty Allah in which He has written all that will be till the Day of Resurrection".
[60] To show that there is no contradiction between being predestined, and free will, Shiites state that matters relating to human destiny are of two kinds: definite and indefinite.
"[63] Iranian scholar Naser Makarem Shirazi asserts that "belief in predestination is a denial of justice", and that there is free will in Islam,[59] but at the same time (according to him) God has foreknowledge of everything in the future.
[64] According to Justin Parrott of the Islamic Yaqeen Institute, "it has been an important issue throughout history",[6] addressed by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle over 2000 years ago.
[65] Orientalist Alfred Guillaume points out the dilemma "has exercised the minds" of theologians of all religions "which claim to present" a god that is both almighty and moral.
[64] Critics have accused Muhammad of making "no effort to grapple with the difficulty his self-contradictory revelations on this subject caused to subsequent thinker.
"[66] Critic of Islam Ibn Warraq complains that the "system of predestination" turns men into "automata", undermining "the notion of moral responsibility" and the justification for the harsh punishment of hellfire.
[23] According to Justin Parrott, the thought that everything has already decreed by the Creator has given problems for theologians and philosophers, even for the single matter of the aspect about the relationship between predestination and free will.