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**Al‑Mizan Tafsir – Sayyid al‑Tabataba’i (Part One)**
If, glorified be He, had compelled His servants to obedience or disobedience, then rewarding the obedient with Paradise and punishing the disobedient with Hell would be arbitrary in the case of the obedient and injustice in the case of the sinner. Arbitrariness and injustice are considered evil by rational people, and it would also imply preference without a cause, which is likewise regarded as reprehensible. No proof can be based on something reprehensible. God, the Exalted, has said:
“So that mankind will have no argument against Allah after the messengers.” (Qur’an 4:165)
And He said:
“So that he who perishes may perish upon clear evidence, and he who lives may live upon clear evidence.” (Qur’an 8:42)
From the previous explanation several matters become clear.
First: Legislation (divine law) is not founded on compulsion in actions. Religious obligations are established according to the interests of the servants in their worldly life and their hereafter. They are directed to people insofar as they possess the ability to choose between action and abstention. Thus, those who are morally responsible are rewarded or punished according to what their own hands have earned of good or evil through their choice.
Second: What the Qur’an attributes to God—such as leading astray, deception, plotting, extending support in rebellion, empowering Satan over human beings, appointing a companion for them, and similar expressions—is attributed to Him in a manner befitting His sanctity and purity from all deficiency, evil, and ugliness. All these meanings ultimately return to forms and branches of misguidance. However, not every kind of misguidance—even initial misguidance arising from neglect—is attributed to Him or appropriate to His holiness. Rather, the misguidance attributed to Him is misguidance as a form of recompense and abandonment for those who, by their own bad choice, expose themselves to it. As He says:
“He misguides many thereby and guides many thereby, but He misguides none except the defiantly disobedient.” (Qur’an 2:26)
And He says:
“So when they deviated, Allah caused their hearts to deviate.” (Qur’an 61:5)
And He says:
“Thus does Allah lead astray whoever is excessive and doubtful.” (Qur’an 40:34)
Third: Divine decree (qada’) does not relate to human actions insofar as they are attributed to their agents in terms of their immediate agency, but rather in terms of their existence. Further clarification of this point will come later in the appendix and in the discussion of decree and destiny, God willing.
Fourth: Just as legislation does not accord with compulsion, it also does not accord with absolute delegation (tafwid). Command and prohibition from a master have no meaning if the master possesses nothing of the matter. Moreover, delegation would require stripping God—exalted be He—of the absolute ownership over some of what is within His dominion.
(Qur’an, Surah al‑Baqarah, verses 26–27)
**Narrative Discussion**
Numerous narrations from the Imams of the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them) report that they said:
“There is neither compulsion nor absolute delegation, but rather a matter between two matters.”
In the book *Al‑‘Uyun*, through several chains of transmission, it is reported that when the Commander of the Faithful, Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him), returned from Siffin, an elderly man who had been present at the battle stood before him and said:
“O Commander of the Faithful, tell us about our march—was it by the decree and destiny of God?”
The Commander of the Faithful said:
“Yes, O old man. By God, you did not climb any hill nor descend into any valley except by the decree and destiny of God.”
The old man then said:
“Then with God I reckon the hardship of my effort, O Commander of the Faithful.”
Ali replied:
“Wait, O old man. Perhaps you think it was a binding and unavoidable decree. If that were so, reward and punishment would be void, commands and prohibitions meaningless, and admonition pointless. The promise and the threat would lose their meaning. No blame would fall upon the sinner, and no praise would belong to the righteous. In fact, the righteous would be more deserving of blame than the sinner, and the sinner more deserving of praise than the righteous. Such is the doctrine of idol‑worshippers, the adversaries of the Most Merciful, the fatalists of this community, and its Magians.
O old man, God has charged people with duties while granting them choice, and He forbade them as a warning. He gives much reward for little action. He is not disobeyed by compulsion, nor is He obeyed unwillingly. He did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between them in vain. That is the assumption of those who disbelieve; so woe to those who disbelieve from the Fire.”
The author says: His statement, “by the decree and destiny of God,” up to the words “I reckon my hardship with God,” indicates that one of the earliest debates in Islam—over which opinions greatly differed—concerned theology and the issue of divine decree and destiny. When they analyzed the meaning of decree and destiny, they concluded that the eternal divine will encompasses everything in the world. Nothing exists merely as possible; if it exists, it exists necessarily because the divine will has تعلق to it, and God’s will cannot fail to realize what it intends.
When this principle was applied to human actions, a problem arose regarding our voluntary acts. At first glance, these actions seem equally attributable to existence or non‑existence until the human will chooses one side. Thus our actions appear voluntary, and our will appears to influence their occurrence. However, if the eternal divine will necessarily determines every action, then the voluntary nature of the act would be nullified, as would the effect of our will in bringing it about.
In that case there would be no meaning to the capacity to act before the action occurs, nor any meaning to moral obligation—especially when disobedience occurs—since it would amount to imposing duties beyond one’s ability. Rewarding the obedient under compulsion would be arbitrary, and punishing the sinner under compulsion would be unjust. From this, some thinkers concluded that human capacity does not exist prior to the act, and that good and evil are not real qualities that bind God’s actions—whatever He does is good and cannot be described as evil. Thus they allowed preference without cause, arbitrary will, imposing obligations beyond capacity, and punishing the sinner even if the deficiency was not from him. Exalted is God above such conclusions.
In summary, in early times the doctrine of decree and destiny was often understood to imply the abolition of moral good and evil and of reward based on merit. Thus when the old man heard that the march had occurred by decree and destiny, he said in despair: “With God I reckon the hardship of my effort,” meaning that his will and effort had no real effect since everything was determined by divine will.
Imam Ali responded that if matters were truly compelled in that way, reward and punishment would be meaningless. He appealed to rational principles upon which religious legislation is based. He concluded his statement by saying that God did not create the heavens and the earth in vain. For if arbitrary will were valid—as would follow from denying human choice—then actions could occur without purpose, which would imply that creation itself might lack purpose. This would mean the heavens and the earth were created in vain, leading to the denial of resurrection and many other absurd consequences.
His words “He is not disobeyed by compulsion and not obeyed unwillingly” mean that God is not disobeyed while the sinner is forced, nor obeyed while the obedient person is coerced.
In *Al‑Tawhid* and *Al‑‘Uyun*, it is reported from Imam al‑Ridha (peace be upon him) that when compulsion and delegation were mentioned in his presence he said:
“Shall I not teach you a principle regarding this matter by which you will not disagree, and by which no one will argue against you except that you will defeat him?”
They said: “Yes.”
He said:
“God, the Mighty and Exalted, is not obeyed through coercion, nor disobeyed through overpowering. He has not neglected His servants within His dominion. He is the owner of what He has granted them ownership of, and capable over what He has enabled them to do. If the servants obey Him, God does not block or prevent them from it; and if they disobey Him and He wills to intervene between them and their act, He does so. If He does not intervene, they perform it—but He is not the one who forced them into it.”
He then said:
“Whoever properly understands the limits of this statement has overcome his opponent.”
The author says: The fatalists were led to their doctrine through reflection on decree and destiny and the conclusion that everything is determined with necessity. This line of reasoning is correct in itself, and its conclusion is also correct—but they erred in its application. They confused realities with conceptual considerations and mixed up necessity and possibility.
If decree and destiny are affirmed, they imply that things in the order of creation possess necessity and determination. Every existent and every state of an existent is measured and determined by God, possessing specific limits and characteristics that do not deviate. Necessity and determination belong to the complete cause: when a thing is related to its complete cause, it becomes necessary; but when considered in relation to something else, it remains merely possible.
Thus the spread of decree and destiny throughout the world is simply the universal operation of complete causality and effect. This does not contradict the existence of potentiality and possibility from another perspective.
A voluntary act performed by a human being—when considered together with all its causes, such as knowledge, will, sound instruments, appropriate material, and temporal and spatial conditions—becomes necessary in existence. This is the act to which the eternal divine will تعلق. However, its necessity relative to the totality of its causes does not mean it is necessary relative to only one part of those causes—such as the human agent alone. Relative to the human agent, it remains within the realm of possibility.
Therefore, the claim that the universality of divine decree removes human power and choice is false. The divine will relates to the act with all its aspects and conditions, including its connection to its causes and circumstances. In other words, the divine will relates to the act performed by a particular person—not absolutely—but as an act freely chosen by that person at a specific time and place.
Thus the divine will’s influence in making the act necessary does not negate human choice. Rather, the act is necessary relative to the divine will and possible and voluntary relative to the human will. The two wills are not on the same level competing with each other; rather, one is subordinate to the other. Hence the error of the fatalists was failing to distinguish between hierarchical wills and parallel wills.
The Mu‘tazilites opposed the fatalists regarding human freedom, but they took another flawed path. They accepted the fatalists’ premise that if God’s will relates to an act, human choice would be nullified. Yet they insisted on human freedom, so they denied that God’s will relates to human acts. This led them to posit another creator of actions—namely the human being—while God creates everything else. This implies a form of dualism and leads to further difficulties. As the Imam said: “The poor Qadariyyah sought to affirm God’s justice but ended up removing Him from His power and sovereignty.”
An example of this is that of a master who chooses a servant, marries him to one of his maidservants, grants him land, a house, furnishings, and other necessities for life for a limited time. If we say that despite granting all this the master remains the true owner and the servant does not truly own anything, that is the doctrine of the fatalists. If we say that by granting it the master has completely relinquished ownership and the servant alone becomes the owner, that is the doctrine of the Mu‘tazilites.
But if we combine the two forms of ownership while preserving their ranks—saying that the master remains the master and the servant remains the servant, and that the servant’s ownership exists within the master’s ownership—then the master is owner while the servant is also owner. This is ownership within ownership. That is the true doctrine affirmed by the Imams of the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them), and reason also establishes it.