Metaphysical Investigations

Some orientalists imput Mu'tazila’s doctrine to the foreign sources and say:  Mu'tazila’s teachings, such as free will, come from other traditions. They claim that Islam is the religion of the fate and destiny, and the Will of God is extended to every being in the universe, so Islam is a determinist religion and Mu'tazila’s defence of the free will cannot genuinely be raised from their teachings.

This Paper is to show that the doctrine of free will is a genuine idea of Mu'tazila and different approaches among Muslim thinkers  towards the verses of the Quran, the Prophet’s narratives and the other internal factors formed the doctrines of determinism (compulsion), absolute free will (submission) and neither/nor (al-amr al- bain al-amrain). According to this research, the ideas of determinism and submission cannot be very much harmonized with the Islamic principles. The doctrine of “al-amr-al- bain al-amrain” is more justified by the Quranic verses and Islamic narratives.