fate

We were talking about fate with a non-muslim couple the other day.

They told us about a friend of them who was found dead in his car, apparently from an accident. No one helped him and he was found by a police car. They had heard from another friend about how some ar@bs believe that if you help a person who is about to die, it's like changing that person's fate (as given by God), and therefore you are considered meddling.

I am not sure about the validity of the information that they got, whether it's a culture thing or whether it was just a misinformation (i.e. maybe a friend of a friend asked an ar@b guy and that ar@b guy didnt know what to say and offered this as an explanation).

Thinking that you could meddle with God's fate is almost blasphemous I think. I mean it's almost like you're saying you have the power to change a fate that God has given, almost like you are as powerful as God. Who are we to know what fate God has in store of us?



'Fate' can be quite a tricky concept for some muslims to understand.

Some have this "since this is my fate, why should I even bother trying"-mentality.

From what I understand, there are two 'parts' of fate: Qada' and Qadar.

Qada' is more commonly known as 'destiny', what Allah has predetermined for us even before we were born, i.e. when we will die, who will we marry, our rezeki , etc (what else ya?). These are not revealed to us in advance.

Qadar is whatever is predetermine by the scheme of natural creation, like laws of physics and chemistry and such. These can be reavealed in advance, through the study of science for instance.

A good example of how this works is if you get hit by a car. By Allah's Qadar, you will get hurt, that's for sure, but whether you will live or die because of being hit by a car, you don't know because Allah's Qada' is not revealed to us.

But any sound thinking person, muslim or not, would try not to get hit by a car in the first place. Does this constitute to going against Allah's fate for us? It doesnt, because if it is Allah's decree that the person will die there at that specific date and time, he will die, irregardless of whether he was hit by a car, or choking on a cherry pit.



Now, lets get back to my 'dream trip'.

I don't know what my fate/destiny will be. Whether I get to go or not go.

But by god, I'm going to do everything within my power and within Allah's Qadar to try and make it work.

I don't actually believe in jinxes (despite what i sound like in the previous post), but I am still not going to reveal the destination, because I would be really embarassed if I talked about it so much and then end up not being able to go!

tee hee.