Fate and Divinity - Islamic perspective

Out and out, fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny. I have many reasons to believe that we create our fate every day, and every moment we live. Thus and so, each man is the architect of his own fate.

Fate comes down on those who do nothing but curse their fate. In point of fact, it utterly leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant. Implicitly and explicitly, such are the people who live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.

Just the same, those who have the power to push back the tides of consequential forces, can actually change their fate. And those who can’t are the people who ought to change their attitude. This implies that there is no fate but our decisions that make or unmake it.

Fate is just a fancy way of saying luck. Once a fortune teller told Hitler that he had no lines in his hand to show bright prospects and hence a bad fate ahead. He took a knife, incised a line on his palm and said, ‘That’s upto me how I draw my fate.” By the way, Hitler was a leader who was a victim of fate owing to wrong decision.

And never forget that winners refuse to believe in fate and losers use it as an excuse. To change your fate, you must first change yourself, as it is you who created your fate.

Some believe that one's fate may be ascertained by divination. That’s true in Islam and Allah is referred to as the Divinity. Among Muslims, there is a sphere in which human beings are perfectly free to choose between moral options. Here people have a freedom to choose good or bad options. A person has complete control in this sphere over his intentions. Even here, although he has the perfect freedom to choose, he is not free to carry out these intentions.

Man is thus partly free and partly subject to deterministic forces. He will nevertheless be held accountable for acts that he intended to do out of his free will. He can make his own fate. He has been shown both the paths, of virtue and vice, of truth and falsehood. He has been given complete freedom of choice between the two. He needs to exercise this freedom responsibly.

The belief that everything which happened, and will happen is according to the knowledge, will and command of Allah is called Taqdeer. Belief in Taqdeer is obligatory. Strong belief in Taqdeer will indicate that Allah’s wish is in this occurrence and it cannot be opposed. And Taqdeer happens to be the synonym of destiny and has nothing to do with fate.

Allah states in Surah Aal-e-Imran: “(After you have consulted) and when you have firmly decided, then have trust on Allah (and proceed to do what you have decided to do). Verily, Allah loves those who place reliance (on Him).”

In a hadith compiled by Tirimizi, Jabbir (Radi Allah anhu) narrates that Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said: “You can never be a Mu’min as long as you do not believe in Taqdeer in its good and its bad to such an extent that whatever is to happen will not be warded off and whatever is not to happen will not occur.

Nonetheless, in keeping with social precepts, Man is free to choose his actions but must bear the natural consequences of them. The laws governing the physical as well as the human social universe are unchanging and constant. Whosoever follows the Divine Law, even if to a very small extent, and does noble deeds will see pleasant results. As in Chapter 99, Verse 7-8 of the Holy Qur’an, Allah says “And whosoever goes against the law, even if to a very small extent, would get appropriate punishment.”

Through and through, the end of the matter is an abstract expression: destiny and not fate is the verdict of divinity. Asif J. Mir Organizational Transformation

The Brain Drain

The future trends explain that the nanotechnology will elongate life spans and thus the West and the Japan is going to have enlarged older population and diminishing youth. To fill in the demographic gap those countries will hire skilled youth from Asia. This will intensify the stream of brain drain from Pakistan. This calls for use of strategic human management and economic reasons as key actions needed to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The term brain drain was popularized in the 1960s with the loss of skilled labor-power from a number of poor countries, notably India. Of particular concern was the emigration of those with scarce professional skills, like doctors, engineers and management scientists, who had been trained at considerable expense by means of taxpayers' subsidies to higher education.

UNESCO defines the brain drain as an odd form of scientific exchange among states because a movement in one direction that inevitably flows to developed countries characterizes it.

Pakistan is suffering from two main problems, one is poverty, which is increasing day by day and the other is increasing rate of crime. Both are result of unemployment. The wrong distribution of wealth due to wrong policies and over-population has made the situation even worst. This paved a way for skilled citizens to go abroad especially, the educated youth.

Other reasons include: they feel that they have a better future, a greater security; will be better off financially, and they feel that they and their children will get better education.

The receiving countries are the winners while the sending countries are the losers. The receiving countries include the US, England, Australia and West Germany. The sending countries include beside others, Pakistan. The rulers of Pakistan who remain indifferent to prevailing problems, and fail to respond to the employment problem creatively, contributes to brain drain.

Pakistanis who completed their studies in Europe and the US are not returning to Pakistan. Since one in three Pakistani professionals will like to live outside Pakistan, Pakistani universities are actually training one third of their graduates for export to the developed nations. We are thus operating one third of Pakistani universities to satisfy the manpower needs of Great Britain and the United States. Stated differently, the Pakistani education budget is nothing but a supplement to the American or British education budgets. In essence, Pakistan is giving developmental assistance to the wealthier western nations, which makes the rich nations richer and the poor nations poorer.

It is the best and brightest that can emigrate, leaving behind the weak and less imaginative. We cannot achieve long-term economic growth by exporting our human resource. In the new world order, people with knowledge drive economic growth. We talk a lot of poverty alleviation in Pakistan. But who is going to alleviate the poverty? Or the uncreative bureaucracy that created poverty? Hypothetically, the most talented should lead the people, create wealth and eradicate poverty and corruption.

In theory, overseas Pakistanis are morally obliged to return back home. In truth, it is unrealistic thinking that that a Pakistani professional will resign from his $60,000 a year job to accept a $3,000 a year job in Pakistan. A more meaningful question will be to ask: What measures can be taken to entice Pakistanis leaving abroad to return home and what can be done to discourage those professionals in Pakistan to remain in Pakistan?

The brain-drain seriously affects the quality and delivery of public and private services there are two obvious solutions (a) make it worthwhile for highly-trained professionals to stay and (b) replace them with competent locals at a rate as fast or faster than their departure brain train.

Another solution is to devise strategies of brain gain. These can take the development of a brain gain network. Pakistan is not effectively encouraging the use of its diaspora in contributing to development at home (e.g., 80 per cent of recent foreign investment in the People's Republic of China came from overseas Chinese). The brain gain network can help in the promotion of joint research and teaching posts, the use of medical specialists in periodic return visits, short-term training assignments and even systematic professional and research collaboration on electronic networks. These could be effective ways of harnessing the skills of some of the distinguished scientists, medics, artists and educators with Pakistani origins living abroad.

With good employers, attractive working conditions, improved telecommunications and the entrepreneurial climate in India today, young professionals are moving back and strengthening the economic sector. Then IT professionals in India are quite often paid in foreign currency at international rates to prevent brain drain and hence exports of Indian software industry is now in the range of $10 billion.

Pakistan’s bureaucracy, rigid hierarchies and frustrating professional fragmentation also pushed people away. Pakistan is a mess, a haze of over-regulated and overcomplicated bureaucracy smothering the rare flames of true entrepreneurial brilliance.

Lack of opportunities compelled me to leave Pakistan in early 80s. Since then I acquired not just high education from prestigious universities of Europe and America, my practice also earned global recognition with rain of medals and achievement awards. Now that I have voluntarily come back, rather timorous of my credentials, government officials are keeping me at bay. The President House vainly tried to get me Consulting jobs at two federal departments. It failed for I was undesirable most probably due to my high credentials. Government managers who have utterly unsuccessful in planning for even paltry matters such as payment of utility bills only creates road blocks for such Pakistanis who want to come back. Thus in a society comprising sycophants and greedy relatives, I am twiddling with no job in hand. Rhetoric aside, one question dominates my mind: does Pakistan have any repatriation policy for such Pakistanis who are globally recognized and who are capable of offering prescriptions for prevailing ills? (www.asifjmir.com)