and as these actions are good as well as bad, therefore God is the Creator of the evil deeds of man. The context, however, shows that mā ta‘malūn here means “what you make,” and not “what you do,” and the verse in question does not speak of the good and evil deeds of man, but of the idols and stones which were worshipped. The preceding verses 91-93 speak of Abraham’s breaking the idols; v. 94 says that when the people saw their idols broken, they advanced towards him; vv. 95, 96 contain Abraham’s arguments against idol-worship: “Do you worship that which you hew out? And Allāh has created you and what you make.” Now the concluding words “what you make” clearly refer to the idols which they made, and the argument is clear that what was hewed out by man’s own hands could not be God, God being the Creator of man as well as of the stones which were made into idols. This interpretation has been accepted by the best commentators.4
It may, however, be added that God is recognized by the Holy Qur’ān as the first and ultimate cause of all things; but this does not mean that He is the Creator of the deeds of man. He has, of course, created man; He has also created the circumstances under which he lives and acts; but still He has endowed man with a discretion to choose how to act, which he can exercise under certain limitations, just as all his other powers and faculties are exercised under limitations and only in accordance with certain laws. Thus it is said in the Holy Qur’ān: “The truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve” (18:29). And as he can exercise his discretion or his will in doing a thing or not doing it, he is responsible for his own deeds and is made to suffer the consequences.5
A great deal of misunderstanding exists as to the relation of the Divine will to the will of man. All the faculties with which man has been endowed have emanated from the great Divine attributes. Yet all human attributes are imperfect, and can be exercised only under certain limitations and to a certain extent. God is All-Seeing and All-Hearing; man also sees and hears, but these attributes in him bear no comparison to the Divine attributes of seeing and hearing, being
4 R.M. VII, p. 300. According to some commentators, the concluding words are interrogatory: “And Allāh has created you — and what is it that you do?”
5 The useless controversy as to whether God was or was not the Creator of man’s deeds divided the Muslim world at one time into three camps. The Jabarīyah held that God was the Creator of man’s deeds, whether good or evil, and man was entirely powerless in the matter. He moved as the Divine hand moved him, having neither the choice, nor the power, nor the will to swerve a hair’s breadth from what God had decreed. Another party went to the other extreme holding that man, being the creator of his own actions, had full control over them. This was the view adopted later on by the Mu‘tazila whose founder was Wāṣil ibn ‘Aṭā. Their argument was that it was impossible that God should first compel a man to do a thing and then punish him for it. The general body of the Muslims held that both these were extreme views. But in marking out an intermediate course, they adopted a position which was not very clear. They held that faith was the via media between jabr and qadar, but to effect a reconciliation between these two extreme views they introduced the theory of kasb which means acquisition. The gist of this theory was “that man is neither absolutely compelled, nor an absolutely free agent” (RI., p. 104). So far the position was logical, but further discussions led the holders of this view to the absurd position that man was only outwardly free, being inwardly forced. It is true that man’s will works under certain limitations, qadar or taqdīr of God, but it is not true that the Divine will compels him to take a certain course. There may be a hundred and one causes of his decision in a particular case, and his responsibility may vary according to those circumstances; but still the choice is his and so is the responsibility.