When a child is born, does Allah at the same time determines and fixes his life or span of life? And can it change with his deeds or actions? I want to know a little more on this. In fact, why do you fix the formation of decree to that limited period of the childbirth? Why should you conceive of Allah only deciding his fate at the time of his birth? Why not earlier? I can’t follow this aspect of your question. What made you fix the time of making of decree, the time of childbirth? I meant the whole of the question, sir.
You can please answer the first part as well. What I meant was, when a child is born, his age limit is fixed or it can vary, because in the Holy Quran, Allah has said, if you do good deeds, I’ll prolong your life. Where has Allah said that? In the Holy Quran? It’s mentioned anyway, sir. Where? It could be hadith, sir. I’m not sure. And again, where? Please sit down. The fact is that you should not attach this general problem, this general question, to the limited time of childbirth. Just ask this question as such, generally speaking. In essence, what you want to know is that is the age of every living being, at least of every human being, is predetermined or not? Yes. Is that what you want? It is not predetermined in the sense as understood by certain orthodox mullahs.
The fact is that the predetermination should be understood in the context of Allah’s decrees, what type of decrees there are, is there a single class of decree which operates in every detail, everywhere, or there are various categories of Allah’s decrees. Hazrat Masih Maud a.s. has spoken on this subject and written on this subject. Hazrat Musleh Maud delivered a lecture on this very subject under the title of Taqdeer-e-Ilahi in one of the annual conferences at Qadian. And this is a very rich contribution to this subject. If you had read that, you would immediately understand that the decrees of Allah belong to various categories.
Some are general decrees, and all the laws of nature are also decrees of Allah, which cannot be changed, which influence groups, classes, as well as individuals. So they interact, in certain cases, with nations, with peoples, with individuals, and so on. And as a result of the interaction of this general decree of Allah, the laws of nature, and the individual behaviour of a person or a national behaviour of a people, their age is decreed again. That is determined. So age of a people is also determined in this way, and age of a person is also determined in this way, generally speaking. But that does not obviate the possibility of individual decrees by Allah in certain cases.
For instance, those who are commissioned by Allah, prophets and so on, there it is not just a general decree which is in operation. When Allah decides and foretells that I am going to guarantee your safety until you have finished your task, in that case such a prophet who is addressed in these terms is shifted from ordinary general decree to the region of a very special decree of Allah, where individually he is being guarded from then on. Ordinary laws of nature work in subjugation to his cause, not as his masters. So that is another type of decree within the larger decree of Allah.
So if you read the book, as I have mentioned, Taqdeer-e-Ilahi, then you will begin to understand the general phenomena of decree of Allah. Although it would still raise certain other questions. But at least the preliminary will be known and then you will be better able to further study the phenomena of decree.
