Most Muslims find it rather odd that their religion, which strikes a beautiful balance between faith and action, could be accused of being “fatalistic”. Perhaps this misconception came about because Muslims are taught to say “Praise be to God!”
whenever anything good or bad happens. This is because Muslims know
that everything comes from Almighty God, who is the All-Knowing
Sustainer of the Universe, and that since a Muslim should rely
completely on God, whatever happened must have been for the better.
However, this does not mean that Muslims are not taught to take action
in life — just the opposite is true.
Islam requires not only faith, but action — such as
regular prayer, fasting and charity. To be more precise, in Islam
actions are part of one’s faith. Islam total rejects the extreme beliefs
of some religions that teach that you shouldn’t go to a doctor when
sick, but only pray for God to heal you.
Islam’s outlook is very positive, since it teaches that human beings can take positive action in this life. This
was certainly what was taught by Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
to his followers — since they obviously took the action of spreading
Islam from Spain to Morocco in a very short period of time. Even though
Islam teaches that God knows what human beings will do before they do
it, human beings still have free will. Certainly God, who is All-Knowing
and All-Wise, knows what is going to happen to everyone before it
happens — to deny this would be a denial of God Himself.
However, if human-beings did not have free will, it would be
ridiculous and un-just for God to demand that they do certain things and
believe certain things. Far from being “fatalistic”, Islam
teaches that a human-being’s main purpose in life is to be
God-conscious. Due to this, Muslims worry less about material matters
and view their earthly life in a proper perspective. This is due to the
fact that Islam clearly teaches that if people worship and depend on
Almighty God alone, then they have nothing to worry about – since God
wants what is best for them. True freedom, from the Islamic
perspective, does not mean aimlessly following all of your human desires
for food, drink, wealth and sex. On the contrary, freedom means being
able to control one’s base desires and fulfilling them in a proper and
legal way. This brings one’s desires in tune with what God wants for us –
only then is a person truly free!
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