![\"Sultan](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/11\/Hijabi_in_front_of_mosue_in_Cairo.jpg\")
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This focus upon submission to the inscrutable will of God as the characteristic mark of true religion points to Islam\u2019s emphasis upon the omnipotence of God. It is an emphasis that is absolutely fundamental to the religion. It underlies Muslim rejection of the doc\u00adtrine of the atonement of Christ and flavors daily life and speech throughout the Islamic world. To elaborate, God forgives whomever He chooses to forgive, and denies forgiveness to anybody he wants, for any reason he chooses. God is an absolute sovereign. There is no law to which he is subject, nobody to whom he must give an account. All creatures, all planets, all people, all prophets (including Jesus of Nazareth), all natural laws and moral principles are, in the Islamic view, equally powerless before the Lord of the universe.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Muslims would strenuously reject the view, often heard in Latter-day Saint circles, that the atoning sacrifice of Christ was necessary in order to satisfy the demands of cosmic law, and that it was only then that God could extend forgiveness without upsetting the uni\u00adversal balance of things. (This view is prominent in the Book of Mormon. \u201cWhat,\u201d asked Alma the Younger of his son Corianton, \u201cdo ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God.\u201d)[2]<\/a> They would want to know who would depose God, why he would \u201ccease to be God.\u201d Actions are right, in the standard Muslim view, because God says they are; he does not say they are right because of some celestial standard, independent of him and, in a sense, prior to him, that tells him to do so. Thus, as a chemistry professor at the University of Cairo once told me, \u201cGod doesn\u2019t need to sacrifice somebody in order to buy himself out of the need to punish us.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n God\u2019s all-powerful Lordship is an ever-present reality in the daily life of Muslims. The Qur\u2019an directs its people to say \u201cIf God wills\u201d whenever they announce their intention to do something. \u201cDo not say, regarding anything, \u2018I am going to do that tomorrow,\u2019 but only, \u2018If God wills.\u2019\u201d[4]<\/a> It is not surprising, thus, that in sha\u2019a <\/em>Allah<\/em> (\u201cif God wills\u201d) is one of the most commonly heard phrases in the Arabic language. But many Westerners tend to take it as a mere verbal formula, a cultural habit with little or no thought behind it. Sometimes they think of it as an excuse, offered in advance, for not fulfilling a promise. (The employee says, \u201cI\u2019ll do this right away, in sha\u2019a <\/em>Allah<\/em>.\u201d <\/em>God, it will be explained, just hadn\u2019t willed that the task be completed so soon.) The phrase can become quite an irri\u00adtant for time-ridden Westerners trying to transact business in a cul\u00adture that is clearly less concerned about deadlines and rushing about. But it is taken very seriously by devout followers of Islam. I was once rebuked when I told a Muslim friend that I would meet him at a certain place at noon the next day. He waited silently, clearly expecting me to say something else. When I said nothing, he told me politely but firmly to say \u201cIf God wills.\u201d \u201cHow do you know that you will meet me tomorrow?\u201d he asked. \u201cHow do you even know that you\u2019ll still be alive? You could have a heart attack. A car could run over you. Your apartment building could collapse on your head.\u201d (Both of these last two possibilities are real concerns in a place like Cairo.) \u201cIt is sheer irreligious arrogance,\u201d he told me, \u201cto believe that you are in charge of your own soul and to leave God out of the picture. If God does not will it,\u201d he said, \u201cyou will most definitely not meet me tomorrow at noon!\u201d I must admit, I was chastened.<\/span><\/p>\n The Islamic emphasis on the supremacy of God\u2019s will can cer\u00adtainly lead to a kind of fatalism, to a resigned apathy that doesn\u2019t try to improve conditions or to find solutions or to fight diseases or to take care of our health. Things as they are, this view suggests, are what God has ordained; it would be futile and even blasphe\u00admous to seek to change them! (Unsurprisingly, the doctrine has sometimes been employed by rulers in Islamic countries in order to warn their subjects against unrest and revolution.) I do think that many Muslims tend to overemphasize God\u2019s power and their powerlessness in just that way. Still, there are clear biblical grounds for similar belief:<\/span><\/p>\n Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boast\u00adings: all such rejoicing is evil.<\/strong>[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n If Islamic culture perhaps overstresses God\u2019s determination of all things, we in the modern West probably fail to recognize it enough<\/em>. Overconfidently, we sometimes imagine that all of the problems that have confronted humankind through the centuries have now begun to yield before our technology, our money, and our rational planning. Yet we are not, in the final analysis, really the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls. Our most advanced medical machinery cannot prolong our lives indefinitely, a snowstorm can bring our biggest cities to a standstill, a slight rocking of the earth can level them to the ground. A little more humility before nature and nature\u2019s God would not be amiss. In this respect, as in others, I think we can learn from our Muslim brothers and sisters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> The situation is not unlike the equality of all peoples before the Abbasid caliph, to which I shall refer in the next chapter. I would argue that the resemblance between Islamic theology and the reality of the Islamic empire in which it developed is probably not mere coincidence.<\/span><\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Alma 42:25.<\/span><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> In these terms, Christian belief does seem a bit strange. Paul was right. The doc\u00adtrine of \u201cChrist crucified\u201d does appear \u201cunto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.\u201d (1 Corinthians 1:23.) We can hardly be surprised that a modern Muslim, heir to a Semitic religion mingled with Greek philosophical thought patterns, would find it difficult to accept.<\/span><\/p>\n