“Free Will” and “Accountability” in the “Thought” of Shaykh Abū Ādam al-Narūijī

I asked Shaykh Abū Ādam al-Narūijī the following question: In Islamic beliefs, is there a place for human accountability? If so, what does human accountability mean or entail in light of the doctrine of predestination?

I was given an answer here. However, the answer only generated more difficulties. He believes, for example, that human beings have a will, but that this will is itself willed by his god and that all human actions are the outcome of the will of his god. Somehow, though, he asserts that human beings, who have no control over their own actions, are still accountable and therefore liable to receive punishment for those actions.

Unfortunately, when I tried to present those difficulties to the good Shaykh, they weren’t posted. I’m sure it’s just a technical problem with their website. So, I’ve reproduced the comments below.

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“We call it will because this is how we refer to it in our daily lives.”

That is most certainly not “how refer to it in our daily lives.” When those who have not been taught to believe what you believe — that is to say, most everyone else on the planet — employ the term “will,” they do not mean a human will that was willed by God. They rather mean that an action can ultimately be attributed to the autonomous decision of a free and independent human agent.

Again, will implies autonomy. What you’ve described is something other than autonomy. It is something other than the ordinary use of the concept of will. If you want to call it “will,” then you are most certainly not employing the term in the ordinary sense. You are effectively redefining the term such that it is decidedly incompatible with the ordinary use of the term.

Hence, my point. If human actions are, as you say, the result of human desires, and if human desires are, as you say, created by your god, then the use of the term “will” is not only misleading, but superfluous.

It would be more straightforward and honest for you to say, “My god creates your desire to commit action X, something over which you have no control. You then carry out action X, something over which you have no control. X is a punishable action, something over which you have no control. My god therefore punishes you for committing action X, something over which you have no control.” Inserting the use of the term “will” is therefore entirely unnecessary.

In any case, if you want to insert the term “accountable,” too, then you would have to redefine it also, because the ordinary use of the term “accountability” is most certainly not consonant with what you’ve described.