The Best Knowledge: The Power and Will of Allah

In this blog, we will be explaining the attributes of Power and Will of Allah, and we will be explaining the intellectual judgement, which is of three categories.

The Three Categories of the Intellectual Judgement:

1. The Intellectual Necessity: The intellectual necessity is what the sound intellect does not accept its non-existence. Allah and His attributes is the intellectual necessity only. We already proved the existence of Allah and some of His attributes intellectually.

2. The Intellectual Impossibility: The intellectual impossibility is what the sound intellect does not accept its existence. An example of that would be Allah having a partner; this is intellectually impossible and was proven in a previous lesson. It is impossible to attribute to Allah the opposite of the thirteen attributes, which we discussed before and will continue discussing in future blogs.

3. The Intellectual Possibility (The Contingent Beings): The intellectual possibilities (contingent beings) are what the sound intellect accepts their existence at a time and non-existence is accepted. This category refers to all creations, this world.

We will now start the explanation of the attributes of Power and Will of Allah:

The Power of Allah:

Allah, the Omnipotent, is attributed with consummate Power, an Eternal and Everlasting Power. Allah has Power over everything. In this context, everything means the contingent beings (intellectual possibilities), that is, what the mind accepts its existence at a time and non-existence at another. With His Power, Allah makes things come into existence; with His Power, He creates the creation. Allah's Power is not related to the intellectual necessity nor the intellectual impossibility; one is impossible to be non-existent, and the other is impossible to be existing.

The reason behind explaining these three is that some ignorant people might come and ask a layman of the Muslims: “Is Allah able to put himself in a bottle?” Or “Is Allaah able to create a partner to Him in Godhood?”, at that point, some people would answer “Yes” or “No”, both of which would take the person out of Islaam. When the person says: “Yes”, for the first question, he is saying Allah can resemble His creations by fitting in a bottle, and this leads to negating the attribute of “Non-Resemblance to the creation”, and for the second, negates the attribute of “Oneness”. When the person says: “No”, He is implying that Allah is powerless, which leads to this person going out of Islam also. So, how does a person answer such a question and remain safe?

The answer for both questions would be: “Allah’s Power is not related to the intellectual necessity and the intellectual impossibility, it is related to the intellectual possibility”.

Some of the Proofs of Allah's Power:

1. Intellectual Proof:

   If Allah was not attributed with power, then He would've been weak, and weakness is an impossible attribute to be attributed to a God. The being attributed with weakness cannot be a God.

2. Textual Proofs:

   It is mentioned in the Qur'an: ﴾ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ﴿ [Surat Al-Baqarah: 20],

   Which means: "Undoubtedly, Allah has Power over everything".

   Many verses explicitly state that Allah is attributed with consummate power.

The Will of Allah:

Let it be known that Allah is attributed with Will, which is Eternal, Everlasting, and doesn't change at all. Everything in this world happens according to what Allah eternally willed. A belief known among Muslims is that: whatever Allah willed to be shall be and whatever he didn't will to be shall not be. With His will, Allah specifies the contingent being with characteristics that are possible to be attributed to it (according to the sound intellect, a person cannot be alive and dead at the same time; this is impossible) at one time versus another. Example: Allah specified you with a specific height now over another height when you were younger. The characteristics that we have are all due to Allah willing them to be in us.

Some of the Proofs of Allah's Will:

1. Intellectual proof:

   If Allah was not attributed with Will, then this would imply He is compelled by others, and being compelled and forced by others is impossible to be among the attributes of God, since it is a weakness if attributed to Him.

2. Textual Proofs:

   It is mentioned in the Qur'an: ﴾وَمَا تَشَآءُونَ إِلَّا أَنْ يَشَآءَ اللهُ﴿ [Surat Al-Insan: 30],

   Which means: “[O slaves], You do not will unless Allah wills.”

   It is also narrated by Abu Dawud that the Prophet taught his daughters: «ما شاء الله كان وما لم يشأ لم يكن»,

   Which means: "Whatever Allah willed to be shall be and whatever He did not will to be shall not be".

   Several more texts indicate that Allah is attributed with Will.

In this blog, we explained what Muslims believe regarding the attributes of Power and Will of Allah. In our next blog, we will be explaining the attribute of Knowledge and an introduction to the explanation of the attribute of the Speech (Kalam) of Allah.

Stay tuned...