Descriptions:
Suppose that 500 dollars is available in my safe box and I know that there is 500 dollars in my safe box. My knowledge about the existence of 500 dollars in my safe box is knowledge. 500 dollars in my safe box is the thing known. Now, we will ask the same question: Is 500 dollars available in my safe box because of my knowledge about it? Or do I know it because 500 dollars is available in my safe box? That is, is my knowledge dependent on the thing known? Or is the thing known, which is the money in my safe box, dependent on my knowledge?
Doubtlessly, knowledge is dependent on the thing known. In other words, 500 dollars does not exist in my safe box because of my knowledge. On the contrary, I know it because 500 dollars is available in my safe box. If the opposite had been true, that is, if the known had become dependent on knowledge instead of the rule, “knowledge is dependent on the known”, there would have been 50.000 dollars in the safe box when I assumed there were 50.000 dollars in the safe box. However, it is not the case because knowledge is dependent on the known; the known is dependent on knowledge.
When we buy a calendar at the beginning of the year, we see that, the times of sunrise and sunset for all of the days of the year are written. For example, when we look at the 31st of December, we see that the sunrise is at 7:15 and the sunset is at 16:45.
This writing in the calendar is knowledge.
The thing known is the sunrise and the sunset times. Our question is the same: Does the sun rise and set at those times because they are written in the calendar? That is, is the known (the time of the sunrise and the sunset) dependent on knowledge (the writing in the calendar)? Or, is knowledge about the times of sunrise and sunset written in the calendar because of the calculations about them? That is, is knowledge dependent on the known? Doubtlessly, the latter is true (knowledge dependent on the known).
For, the times of the sunrise and sunset were calculated and written. If the opposite had happened, the known would have been dependent on knowledge and when we wrote in the calendar the sunrise as 12:00 instead of 7:15, the sun would have risen at 12:00; and when we wrote “today the sun is not going to rise” the sun would not have risen at all. However, none of them happens because knowledge (the writing in the calendar) is dependent on the known (the sun itself).
Now, let us think of this: Although man is extremely weak, ignorant, and dependent on time and place, he can know what time the sun will rise and set next year, and writes them in the calendar. And nobody has wrong ideas like this: “In the calendar, the times of sunrise and sunset were written; so, the sun is bound to rise and set at these times. If this writing had not existed, the sun would not have risen and set at these times.”
Then, why cannot we understand that Allah, who has infinite power, endless knowledge, who is free from time and place, who is pre-eternal, can write in the book of qadar, which is like a calendar, the day we would be born and the day we would die and all of our deeds between these dates?
We know that the cause of sunrise is not the writing in the calendar. Then, why cannot we understand the fact that the cause of our deeds is not the writing in the qadar calendar; on the contrary, they were written there because we would do these deeds in the future; that is, the knowledge of Allah is dependent on the known (our deeds)? Why do we try to blame qadar for our sins?
