Created Future is Qadr

Today we're going to be talking about a topic that I've been researching for a long time now and it took a lot of my undivided attention . So , inshallah , you guys will find a lot of value in this . Today we're going to be talking about the topic of Qadr , or what is loosely translated as predestination .

Qadr is one of Islam's six articles of faith Other articles along with belief in the oneness of Allah , the revealed books , the prophets of Islam , the day of resurrection and angels . So , like I say , qadr is loosely and commonly translated as predestination , but I'll explain in this podcast why this is a very limiting association .

Qadr as a word has multiple meanings . Qadr as a word has multiple meanings . The root of this word in Arabic is qa dal ra and , etymologically speaking , it gives rise to many different meanings , and that is one of the beauties of Arabic language . One of the meanings of qadr is greatness from Laylat al-Qadr , that is a night of great honor , dignity , majesty .

It also means fate , divine foreordainment or predestination . It is also referred to in the Quran as the decree of Allah . It also carries the meaning of power and measuring out . Measuring out with precision , aiming , being able and calculating .

I also understand that there are differences in this belief concept based on the different sets of Islam , but I'm only going to be speaking about this as it pertains to the Sunni school of thought . Another thing to admit here is that I have a limited human intellect .

Allah SWT says that qadr is a topic that can never be understood by the human intellect , and when I embark on this explanation through this podcast , I'm trying to simplify the concept of qadr for you so you can apply it to create the results that you want . I am fully aware that I will not be able to understand it completely .

The Prophet said if providence is mentioned , then be restrained . So here I'll be mindful of that . The only claim I'm making here is that after this podcast , you'll be able to use this concept for your benefit , and I will try to explain it as simply as I can . Like Einstein said , genius is making complex ideas simple . I pray to Allah that I don't misspeak .

If I do , it's out of my own ignorance and not because of the teachings of Islam . So , for starters , qadr , or providence , has been misused by people of authority to impose acceptance of abuse , especially for women . Putting up with abusive circumstances in the name of qadr is , unfortunately , scaringly common .

So once I was on a long drive with my husband and I remember this incident .

Clearly we were talking about Qadr because I wanted to ask him a question and I told him that I'm very passionate about this subject because we're told all of our lives that we can't change our future and to accept things as they are now because that's how things will always be , that we're told that it's in our qadr and to stop fighting it and to have sabr

and patience . This is kind of like their invitation to accept whatever is . This is specially told to women in the face of abuse , be it physical or emotional abuse . Women are socialized to believe this narrative on so many levels that it seems like the ultimate fact .

So I was actually telling him all of these explanations to make a further point about Qadr that I will tell you in this podcast , but I actually never got to make that point because we couldn't move on in the conversation .

He got stuck at who was telling you all this Like nobody ever says that , and I couldn't believe that this interpretation of other that is actually applied to women so commonly was complete news to him . He was so confused he thought I was making it up . He kept telling me that it doesn't happen like this . I was just baffled at his response .

I don't know if it was being ignorant or he just actually didn't know . He had no idea that women are told this over and over again throughout their lives in different forms . I was surprised and maybe even a little angry . How come he was never exposed to this type of mindset ?

But in his defense , he did grow up in a household of four brothers , so maybe that has something to do with it . He never was really exposed to these limiting beliefs . So in my effort to clarify it to him , I told him that many people say these things .

Mothers say it to their daughters , fathers say it to their daughters , mothers-in-law say it to their daughters-in-law and , worse than that , some religious authorities tell it to women in the community . So while I was completely shocked in that moment , I kept my composure long enough to explain the concept to him .

Women are socialized to believe narratives like put up or shut up , be patient . Don't resist , don't question the saddest call in the name that is your taqdeer . It makes me so mad . That is not what Qadr means . So what I aim to do today is that I will give you some insight so you can break out of any limiting beliefs that you might have around Qadr .

How you gather these limiting beliefs about Qadr is highly variable . It is different for each individual . It depends on your upbringing , your culture , experiences of your caregivers and , of course , many other factors . But , as always , if you decide not to break your limiting beliefs , that will not cut it on the day of judgment .

You cannot use your ignorance about the concept of qadr as a get out of jail card in akhira . If you act like a victim in an abusive situation , it's not because of your qadr , it's because you're not taking time to question your circumstance . On judgment day , you will be told you were given intelligence and reasoning . Why didn't you use it ?

And again , by intelligence I don't mean IQ , I mean the power of metacognition . Notice also very clearly here I say to you that you have a choice about how to respond to the abuse . The abuse itself is not your choice about how to respond to the abuse . The abuse itself is not your choice . The abuse itself is the circumstance or qadr .

Your response to the situation is the choice , and that is where the questioning lies . And you can only make a choice of this response if you see that there is a choice to be made . So if you're continuing to define life through your limiting beliefs , you will never see that choice . If you're spoon-fed all of your life what qadr is ?

Because a scared parent figure didn't know how else to keep you safe , because they were never empowered themselves , they were never informed and they only did what they saw was best for you to protect you , then it's up to them . Once you grow up , you can break that belief yourself .

Once you're liberated from one limiting belief , you learn a meta skill that you can then apply to breaking all of the rest of the limiting beliefs . So , inshallah , in my quest to empower Muslim women , I'm going to simplify the concept of Qadr as it best serves us . You always have a choice to believe it or leave it . We always have that choice .

So , for simplicity's sake , I've divided the concept of qadr as it applies to the past , present and the future . Previously in this podcast , I've referenced our circumstance as our qadr , especially when it comes to CTFAR , the C line being the circumstance or qadr . Each circumstance is interpreted via thought , either the lower brain or the higher brain origin .

Each thought leads to a feeling that leads to actions or inactions , that then leads to results . This is the basic recipe that we follow at Islamic Life Coach School . In this reference of CTFAR , the first letter of the abbreviation C the past and the present is the circumstance , that is our qadr . It does not apply to the future .

By definition , circumstance or qadr is neutral . It does not provoke a feeling in you until you have a thought about it , because Allah SWT created the worlds , worlds . Then he put a human being in the world with a mind to assign meaning to everything around him .

We assign meanings to our surroundings , to our circumstance , to our qadr , through the language of our minds , through our thoughts . I will start with the past here , because it's easier for human mind to make the past factual circumstance , because it's something that was witnessed , that has already happened . It is easy to understand based on our sensory input .

The past is tangible and quantifiable because it already occurred . What happened to you in the past is a neutral circumstance . Also , the past was supposed to happen exactly the way it did because that's how it happened . No force in the planet can change that . That was your journey to take . It was written for you . That was your Qadr .

The sooner you can stop fighting it , the sooner you can stop being miserable over it and start creating a new future from there . People who do not believe in the concept of Qadr have a very hard time wrapping their minds around this .

My coach taught me this concept by repeating over and over again that your past happened the way it did because it just happened . That's reality . It's undisputed . I also watch her other clients taking so long to grasp this concept .

I would watch her struggle , trying to explain this concept all the time , sitting back and thinking Well , thinking , well , yeah , I know that because I believe in qadr . So it's an advantage to you if you already believe in qadr , because you have a lot of thought work already taken care of . Your past is your qadr .

It happened exactly the way it did because that's how it happened . How you move forward is entirely up to you . That is where the choice lies of creating a new and brighter future .

So the same concept can be applied to the present because it's tangible . It's happening to you now . You can measure it , you can objectify it , you can validate it , you can make it factual , you can assign meaning to it based on your sensory input , so it becomes a neutral circumstance .

My qadr is playing out right in front of me , I can measure the temperature of the room , I can sense that I'm sitting on a chair . So it's very tangible for a human mind and easy to comprehend . Of note here is that present is extremely fleeting . Anything that happened a microsecond ago is the past . The only reality is now .

And oh boy , I can talk so much about the now , but I will refrain from that because that's going to be a long tangent . So this is one way to describe qadr when it comes to the past and the present , but qadr is not the same when it comes to the future . The future cannot be a circumstance , or qadr in that sense , because we cannot make it factual .

The future is unknown and the human brain cannot fully understand what is unknown to it because it only works by references . What do I mean by that ? I know my tea is cold because I know what hot is . I know a person is nice or mean , because I can compare the two . There's a frame of reference .

I know art , I know a beautiful painting when I see one , because I've referenced multiple pieces of art , made my choices , sharpened my preferences and have developed a good frame of reference . So I have a sense of what good art to me is . So the human brain functions by references .

When it thinks about the future , it references the past and in our limited human capacity we end up imagining the future the same as our past . But that is extremely naive of the human brain because the possibilities as it relates to the future are infinite and only known to God .

So when you're projecting your past on your future , saying that my future looks the same as my past , I can't lose weight because I've never been able to do it in the past . I cannot create a business because it has never happened before . I cannot get away from an abusive situation because I haven't been able to do it in the past .

When we project our limited frame of reference of the past to create our future , we are actually limiting the power of Allah . And on top of that we're calling it qadr , like we know what is written for us astaghfirullah . But mostly we're doing it unknowingly . This type of frame of reference will have you continue repeating your past in the future .

But this is all okay because we are just in thought error and we can work to correct that thought error . So how , in other ways , are you limiting the power of Allah ? Imagine you step out into the garden and you inadvertently step on a worm and the worm dies .

How it affects the soil surrounding the worm , the ecosystem of the tiny garden , the condition of the greater ecosystem and the condition of the earth at large is unknown to you . It is out of the capability of a human mind to be able to calculate all the variables that will ensue .

But the future effect of that event is known to Allah in all of its possibilities . The precise knowledge of all of that outcome is qadr as it applies to the future . This is kind of an example of the butterfly effect . This term is associated with the work of meteorologist Edward Lawrence .

He said that minor perturbations caused by the flap of a butterfly wing can result in a tornado in a distant land . Even with all the computational powers that the earth currently possesses , with technology and with the human mind put together , we are incapable of predicting these outcomes with precision .

Our limited mind would always be trapped by the framework of time and space , and Allah , subhanahu wa ta'ala , is above these limitations because he created time and space , and whoever creates something has intimate knowledge of the created . So qadr , when it relates to the future , becomes a measure of what is possible , and only Allah knows all the possibilities .

One of the words derived from qadr root letters is taqdeer , which literally means the making of a thing according to measure . Qadr and taqdeer actually then become about precision and accurate measurements . In this case Allah uses the word taqdeer in the Quran , described as accurate rotations of the sun , surah Yasin , ayah 38 .

And the sun runs on its fixed course for a term appointed . That is the decree of the Almighty , the All-Knowing . The word here for decree is Taqdeer , and in the very next ayah word Qadran Nahu is used . And the moon ? We have decreed for its stages till it returns like the old dried , curved date-stock . So both qadr and taqdeer translate as decree .

In the first ayah it applies to the precise rotation of the sun , which is moving at an astonishing speed of 448,000 miles per hour , or 720,000 km per hour for my metric system .

Friends , imagine the precision it takes for a celestial body as large as the sun to be moving at that speed for eons and taking the solar system with it and to never move an inch off its course . That is the accuracy with which it was created , and the precision is only known to Allah .

Same applies to the stages of the moon how precisely they change and how predictable they are that we can base our Islamic calendar on it . So Qadr , in this sense , becomes about the precise knowledge that Allah has of its creations in these examples of the sun and the moon .

The same is true when it comes to the precise knowledge about the capacity of a future of a human being , because we also are Allah's creation . Dr Musharraf Hussain , ceo of Karamiya Institute of Nottingham I might have quoted him before , but he says there's nothing in the universe God doesn't know .

Of all knowing , the omniscient , god has a very deep , precise knowledge of his creation . Padar Taqdeer are about precision and accurate measurement . He goes on to say God knows the capability of his creation with accurate , precision . Evidence for that is provided , as quoted , in the ayahs about the sun and the moon .

So God knows with accurate precision what a human is capable of in all of its possible scenarios , including what all of the human decisions will lead to Humans can only think in references . If I do A , it will lead to B or C . Allah is not bound by these limitations of references .

Dr Musharraf Hussain also says some scholar says that qadr is God's pre-knowledge of capability . And what I will do ? That does not deprive me of the freedom and in this case freedom is the choice of decisions you will make from your thoughts .

Dr Sen also says when we say God is the creator of our actions , what we mean is that God is the creator of the capability of our actions . So God created us with the freedom to choose between right and wrong . Then he has the precise knowledge of our capabilities and then he knows all of the possible outcomes .

That is what qadr means as it relates to the future .

The word predestination reduces the concept of qadr and to me it is not an accurate translation . Predestination is one aspect of qadr , but that's just the tip of qadr , and to me it is not an accurate translation . Predestination is one aspect of qadr , but that's just the tip of the iceberg .

Predestination is a meaning that humans created so that their limited mind can make sense of it in the limited framework of references as it relates to the past . Predestination something that is already written for you . You have no idea what is written for you . Only thing you can imagine for the future is based on your experience .

The biggest issue I have with calling it only predestination is that it renders the human being questioning if allah knows what is going to happen , then why bother taking action ? He wrote everything down , he decided how everything will play out , then why should I take part in it ?

That is a huge , huge misconception , because if that was the case , the idea of heaven and hell would not make any sense . Do not tell yourself that Allah has condemned me to the life of poverty or suffering or abuse . Do not be in despair , thinking there's no point of fighting . This is my destiny .

Don't tell yourself it's not my destiny to be a straight-A student or it's not my destiny to be at the table of fighting . This is my destiny . Don't tell yourself it's not my destiny to be a straight A student or it's not my destiny to be at the table of executives .

All of these are just limiting beliefs , the voice of shaitan presented to you by your lower brain as your own thoughts . This is not what qadr means . More accurate term is al-qadar wal-qadr , which literally means the decree and the measure . Only Allah has full and precise knowledge of your capabilities and your qadr .

As it relates to the future , you have the freedom to create any future you want through the freedom of your thoughts . Only Allah , the all-knowing , already has the knowledge of it . Shaykh Yasir Qadhi says in one of his lectures about qadr that it is not ever used to justify a future action .

Example he gives is that if you tell yourself you're not going to find work because if it was Allah's will , he will provide for you , that is not the correct thought process . You have to get educated , you have to go for interviews , you have to apply for a job , you have to put in the work .

If you're lazy and you don't get out of bed until 1pm and you don't have a job , you can't say it was your qadr . Ironically , this is how we act . If we are in a difficult situation , we expect things to happen for us , while we keep choosing thoughts from our limited frame of reference and we call it our qadr .

Ah , I want to scream , but I'm not going to . Like I said , I'm very passionate about this subject . Jason Parrott is a fellow at Yaqeen Institute and he writes about qadr as providence .

And he says , definition offered here is based upon two sets of texts in the Quran and Sunnah Texts that speak of decree in absolute and unchanging terms , and texts that speak of modification to that degree as it is brought into being .

These two sets of texts seem contradictory on their face , yet they are two aspects of the same reality , whose apparent contradiction is only the result of the human mind's limited frame of reference . Oh , this is so good . And he goes on to say Imagine for a moment that you jumped out of a plane with a parachute .

You have two inescapable destinies ahead of you . You will pull the parachute and live , or you will fail to do so and die . Both of these possibilities have been decreed for you . There is no third option . There is no getting back to the safety of the plane . It is up to you to make the choice that will fulfil the destiny you desire .

Oh , this is so good . So how can qadr be written in the preserved tablet where prophet peace be upon him said that pens have been lifted and the pages have dried ? And how can it be changed that we can choose our actions to alter the future ? Again , this apparent dichotomy is only due to the limitation of the human mind , but Allah knows all the outcomes .

Keep taking action , keep working towards the future you desire and always remember each action starts with a thought . In Islam we're also told that decree can be changed based on Dura and righteous actions . So don't limit yourself . Do all of the thought work .

Clean up all of the lower brain thoughts , break up all of the limiting beliefs , take action and surrender the outcome . Only Allah knows the outcome .

So if we take an example and let's say you start a business , you have a service you offer and you know people will like it , and from a survey you find out that people did not like that idea , that does not mean that it is in your qadr to not have a business . It just means that the survey response told you something other than what you were expecting .

The survey response is your qadr . Now it's up to you to make it mean what you will . Then you go on to change the language of what you were offering . You change the target market and this time your survey response is more promising .

That leads you to create a business plan and it leads you to choose a site where the business can be conducted , but only now you can't find a decent leasing space . Three months have gone by and you don't have any leads At this point . Not having a business site does not mean you cannot have a business .

Not having an office at the end of three months just means that no office , that is your qadr . You go back to making it mean what you will , and that itself will change the outcome . Maybe you can start from your garage for now . Maybe you don't even need an office to start with . There are so many other possibilities . You come back to the drawing board .

You keep taking action with the qadr you were given . You do not apply this concept of qadr as it pertains to your future . You have no idea what is in your future . You create your qadr one thought at a time , one action at a time .

This way , you can actually create your own qadr , not because you have the power to write what's in the preserved tablet or that you have the power to change what Allah preordained for you , but because you do not know what is written for you . This is one of those times where ignorance is a bliss .

You get to create your qadr because of your lack of knowledge or capacity to even know what is destined for you . What if ? And it just so happens , what if ? Your qadr is what you always envisioned ? That way , you can envision your destiny to be the most impossible goal , and all you have to do is to learn to manage your mind around it .

Our limiting actions come from our limiting thoughts . Do your thought work , manage your mind , get coaching if you have to . I pray to Allah , subhanahu wa ta'ala , that he gives barakah in all of our efforts . I pray he protects us from all evil and protect us from the whispers of shaitan as it pertains to our limiting beliefs .

I make sincere dua to him that each of us can live up to the full potential that Allah has decreed for us and not live through the limited potential that our false beliefs create . Please make dua for me .

Insha'allah , you will benefit from this podcast and this concept as much as I have , and if you have seen a slightest benefit from this podcast , please leave me a review . I will talk to you guys next time .