Qadar is a fundamental concept described in religion and philosophy, pushing people to consider whether their lives are “prewritten” or purely determined by themselves.

In Islam, Qadar is the result of humans’ choices, creating a balance between free will and God’s full knowledge and control over everything around us. It is, in fact, one of the pillars of faith; to believe that every action and thought that has occurred, is happening, or will happen, is already planned by God, given that He also gave us, in parallel, the ability to make our own path.

In addition to what was explained before, there exists a concept under the name of Bada’ in Shi’a theology that raises questions within the Islamic community. It suggests that God can change what was destined to happen, even if He always knew it. This is a dynamic view of fate that emphasizes divine flexibility, human responsibility, and multiple potential “branches” of destiny from which only one reality will happen.

According to classical physics, such as Newtonian mechanics, the future is predictable if the initial conditions are known (e.g., the velocity and position of a particle). This aligns with the idea of a fixed, determined destiny by natural laws, putting aside the free will existing in religion. How can we complement this? In fact, in the field of quantum mechanics, where we cannot know the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time, outcomes are probabilistic, where a particle is represented by a wavefunction. The moment we decide to measure this particle; it collapses and takes a certain random state. This builds up the idea of uncertainty and free will.

Thus, the butterfly effect cannot be missed on this one. A single change somewhere can have a huge impact elsewhere: “A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can form a tornado in Texas”. If elsewhere is considered as destiny, then any additional genuine deed done by you can make the path either mysterious or divinely orchestrated, depending on the perspective from which a person views it.

While science proves mechanical ideas, religion tries to give it purpose and meaning. Not everyone accepts digging into scientific concepts this way, trying to see a parallel road with faith. However, putting them together never fails at creating more magic, opening more doors for additional ideas that might come to the reader’s mind, since nothing can be deemed conclusive in this subject, given the spiritual subjectivity involved.