What is "Divine Determining"?

Divine determining is also known as qadar (as an Islamic term), destiny or fate. And the key concept to understand "qadar"is "pre-eternity".

Divine Determining is a sort of knowledge. That is, with His pre-eternal knowledge, Allah knows everything and action with all their aspects before their existence and before they happen. Allah has the pre-eternal knowledge of which results connected to which reasons, and who will try them and what sort of an outcome they will get, in short He knows things and actions with His pre-eternal knowledge.

This knowledge is dependent on the thing known. If there is a difference between the knowledge and the thing known, it will be ignorance. And it is impossible to attribute such an imperfection to Allah. The fact that Allah knows everything beforehand does not indicate/show that the responsibles act by force. Because, an action, an activity, anything occurs with the use of will and power. Knowledge has no effect on the external existence of things. Divine knowledge does not nullify the will of humans. On the contrary it knows that, servants will carry out their actions by their own free will. Knowing the future is like knowing the past. Knowing the past does not change the incidents and things in the past and in the same way knowing the future does not alter the future actions and things . For instance, everyone knows the things that he lived in the past. He has an exact knowledge about it. There are lots of things that he would like to change if it were possible. But knowing the past is not enough to change it. If knowing could produce an effect, then everyone could be able to change their past just by knowing it. For example, Sun does not rise since we know when it will.  Knowing that you will return after the meeting to the places that you have come, does not force you into return. Thus, the character of knowing is having the knowledge of it. Divine knowledge knows how the choices will be, how they will occur.

The concept of Pre-eternity

“Pre-eternity” is an essential attribute of divine knowledge. Pre-eternity, contrary to its regular denotation, is not the beginning or tip of the past. If we think pre-eternity as the tip of a chain reaching into the past, there will be a compulsion because of not holding the past, the present, and the future all at once. That is, since everything is not seen with their reasons and results, like a theatre script, like stage actors playing acting according to it, creatures act, live according to that plan. As a result, a compulsion occurs.

Rather, pre-eternity holds the past, the present, and the future all at once, looking at them from above like a mirror. In which case, it is not right to imagine an end to past time which stretches back within the sphere of contingency and call it pre-eternity, and to suppose that things enter that knowledge of pre-eternity in sequence, and that oneself is outside it; to reason thus is not right.

Here is an example in order to explain this mystery: “Suppose there is a mirror in your hand and the area to your right is the past and the area to your left, the future; the mirror only holds what is opposite it. Then with a movement it holds both sides, but it cannot hold all of it. However low the mirror is held less will appear in it and the higher it rises; the area it encompasses expands, until it can hold both sides in their entirety simultaneously. Whatever occurs in the areas reflected in the mirror in this position cannot be said to precede or follow one another, or to conform to or oppose one another.

Divine Determining is part of pre-eternal knowledge, and in the words of the Hadith, pre-eternal knowledge is “at an elevated station which from its lofty view-point encompasses everything that has been and will be from pre-eternity to post-eternity.” We and our reasoning cannot be outside of it so we can be like a mirror to the area of the past.”

Divine Determining Holds Cause and Affect Together

Divine determining knows which results will happen with which reason/s. That is, it says, “This effect will occur through this cause.” Therefore, we should nor say, “Since so-and-so’s death is determined at such-and-such a time, what fault has the man who fired the rifle through his own choice, for if he had not fired it, the other still would have died?” Divine Determining specified that so-and-so’s death would occur through the man’s rifle. If you suppose that he did not fire

The rifle, then you is supposing that Divine Determining had no connection with it, so with what would you decree his death? It will ve wrong. If you imagine cause and effect to be separate or deny Divine Determining. The Sunni School says: “If he had not fired the rifle, we do not know if he would have died.”