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THE
QUR'ANIC DOCTRINE OF GOD |
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over all things and with God is the Sovereignty
of the Heavens and the Earth, and of all that is between
them.' 1 'But thou art only a warner,
and God hath all things in His charge.' 2
'And He gave you their land, and their dwellings,
and their wealth, for an heritage — even a land on which
ye had never set foot: for the might of God is equal
to all things.' 3 'God is not to
be frustrated by aught in the Heavens or in the Earth;
for He is the all-knowing, the All-Mighty.' 4
'And other booty, over which ye have not yet
had power: but now hath God compassed them for you;
for God is over all things Potent.' 5
All that has ever been, or is, or shall be, is the
expression of the divine will. The manner in which this
supreme divine will is related to the course of events
in the world of nature on the one hand, and on the other
to the consequences and the results of the action of
the human will is a question on which the Qur'an
has no definite teaching. Nowhere does Muhammad try
to explain the method by, which God governs
and overrules all things. And this silence is nothing
more than what we should expect from one whose aim it
was to teach practical religion, and who cared nothing
for theory.
He taught that the divine will is over all, but his
conception of this will and of the method of its operations
being but confused and imperfect, it is not surpris-
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THE
CHARACTER AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD |
37 |
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ing that many statements are to be found in the
Qur'an which it is hard to reconcile with one another,
especially those which refer to the action of the human
will and its relation to the divine will.
In certain passages, the operation of the divine will
appears, at least at first sight, to be described as
absolute and as depending solely on the divine pleasure
irrespective of any moral considerations, or of the
desert or non-desert of man. Thus we find such passages
as the following: 'Knowest thou not that the sovereignty
of the Heavens and of the Earth is God's? He chastiseth
whom He will, and whom He will He forgiveth. And God
hath power over all things.' 1 'No
mischance chanceth either on the earth or in your persons,
but ere We created them, it was in the Book; 2
for easy is this to God.3 'And if God
had pleased, they who came after them would not have
wrangled, after the clear signs had reached them. But
into disputes they fell: some of them believed and some
of them were infidels; yet if God had pleased, they
would not have thus wrangled: but God doth what He will.'
4
But in any estimate of Muhammad's teaching concerning
the operation of the divine will, we must ever bear
in mind what he says concerning the divine justice,
which as we shall see, means moral justice, and not
what the theologians mean when they speak of the justice
of God. Nor must we forget those passages
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