Understanding the Concept of Free Will in Islamic Theology

In the teachings of Ahlussunah wal Jama‘ah, Allah سبحانه وتعالى is believed to be the God who creates and determines everything. The word “everything” here includes human actions, whether acts of obedience or acts of disobedience. Allah سبحانه وتعالى affirms this in the Qur’an, Surah As-Saffat, verse 96:

وَٱللّٰهُ خَلَقَكُمْ وَمَا تَعْمَلُونَ

Meaning: “It is Allah who created you and what you do.”

From the perspective of tawhid, there is actually no problem with this belief, since Allah’s absolute power necessarily means that no creature can exist outside His creative power. Even so, the human tendency to question always finds an apparent difficulty here.

The issue is this: if Allah سبحانه وتعالى creates human actions, is it just for Him to punish sinners? Would that not mean that Allah punishes creatures for deeds that He Himself created? Would that not amount to injustice?

On the other hand, if all human actions are considered to be entirely self-created, then this would mean believing that something can exist outside Allah’s determination. That would negate Allah’s absolute and all-encompassing omnipotence.

To provide a satisfying answer to this dilemma, there are three fundamental points that must be understood.

First, Allah’s creation of human actions should not be understood as coercion. This is because Allah سبحانه وتعالى has created within human beings the capacity to choose, or free will. With this faculty of free will, a person can decide to carry out one action from among several possible choices. Allah does not force that person to choose that particular action.

Second, the process by which a person makes a decision using free will is called kasb, which Shaykh Sa‘id Ramadan al-Buti defines as follows:

فَالكَسْبُ هُوَ تَحَرِّي الشَّيْءِ بِقَصْدِ إِلَيْهِ وَالعَزْمِ عَلَى فِعْلِهِ

Meaning: “Kasb is choosing something with the intention and resolve to carry it out.”
(Sa‘id Ramadan al-Buti, Al-Insan Musayyar am Mukhayyar, Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1997, p. 59).

From this definition, we can understand that there is a difference between kasb as the human effort of deciding on an action, and actually performing the action itself, which is termed al-fi‘lu.

Third, human accountability before Allah سبحانه وتعالى is based on kasb, not on al-fi‘lu. Thus, the reward or punishment that Allah gives to human beings is not based merely on the outward form of the act, but on the person’s conscious decision in choosing that act. This is as Allah says in Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 286:

لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا ٱكْتَسَبَتْ

Meaning: “It will have the reward of the good it has earned, and it will bear the burden of the evil it has committed.”

In this part of the verse, Allah uses the words kasabat and iktasabat, both derived from kasb, rather than forms derived from al-fi‘lu.

From here, we can understand why human beings still deserve recompense for their actions even though the actual form of those actions is created by Allah سبحانه وتعالى. They deserve it because the actions Allah creates for them correspond to the decisions of their hearts.

Shaykh Sa‘duddin at-Taftazani explains this as follows:

فَإِنْ قَصَدَ فِعْلَ الخَيْرِ خَلَقَ اللهُ تَعَالَى قُدْرَةَ فِعْلِ الخَيْرِ، وَإِنْ قَصَدَ فِعْلَ الشَّرِّ خَلَقَ اللهُ تَعَالَى قُدْرَةَ فِعْلِ الشَّرِّ، فَهُوَ الَّذِي ضَيَّعَ قُدْرَةَ فِعْلِ الخَيْرِ فَيَسْتَحِقُّ الذَّمَّ وَالعِقَابَ

Meaning: “If a person intends to do good, Allah creates in him the capacity to do good. If he intends to do evil, Allah creates in him the capacity to do evil. Thus, he is the one who squandered the capacity for good, and therefore deserves blame and punishment.”
(Sa‘duddin at-Taftazani, Syarh al-‘Aqa’id an-Nasafiyyah, Damascus: Darut Taqwa, 2020, p. 224).

In conclusion, it is indeed true that Allah سبحانه وتعالى alone creates all human actions. However, that creation is based upon the human being’s free choice, through the faculty of free will that Allah has provided.

To make this clearer, the concept can be illustrated with the following example. When the call to the dawn prayer is heard, Zaid has two options: continue sleeping or go to the mosque. It turns out that Zaid chooses to sleep. Zaid’s decision to choose sleep is kasb.

However, the actual act of Zaid’s sleeping is created by Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Thus, the point of Zaid’s accountability in the Hereafter lies in his decision to choose sleep and to neglect the option of going to the mosque. As for the act of sleeping itself, it merely serves as the manifestation of that decision.

In this way, the earlier dilemma is answered: human beings are fully deserving of judgment because of their free decisions regarding their actions. Yet those decisions do not lie outside the power of God, because both the human capacity to decide and the action that emerges from that decision are creations of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. والله أعلم.