Islam and the Quran

Does God Guide Whoever He Wants?

Question: I need clarification of the Qur'anic verse: "Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright." If the power of guidance to human beings or misguiding them in Allah's hand then why it is mentioned in the Qur'an that a man has free-will and why did Allah send His messengers if He himself guides or misguides whoever He wants?

The Almighty Allah  creates the things that are included in His servant’s test according to the servant’s choices. Although He wills all the people to be rightly guided, He does not force anyone to follow the right path or to stray. This is why “there cannot be coercion in religion” (al-Baqarah 2:256). Allah decides according to the attitudes and the way they follow in life about His servants, whether they are rightly guided or astray. A path can be named right or wrong only according to the criteria that God has specified. So, calling someone “guided” or “astray” is His decision. The verses with similar meanings to your question actually express this.

However, the alleged pillar of faith “belief in predestination”  is an obstacle to correctly understanding many verses. If you know a bit of Arabic as well as English, you can read the following article about this. We have seen that it needs revision for  an English (only) speaker to be able to understand thoroughly, though:

http://www.islamandquran.org/research/false-roots-of-fatalism-in-islam-destiny-and-criteria.html

 

If your native language is Arabic, please see our Arabic article about this issue:

http://www.hablullah.com/?p=1577fe

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