Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

The phrase “Inshallah,” meaning “if God wills,” originates from Arabic and reflects a deep-seated cultural and religious acknowledgment of divine will in human affairs. Over time, this expression has transcended linguistic boundaries, integrating into various languages and cultures worldwide, including Urdu, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish, among others.​

In Arabic, “Inshallah” (إن شاء الله) is a combination of three words: “in” (if), “sha’a” (wills), and “Allah” (God), collectively translating to “if God wills.” This phrase is deeply rooted in Islamic tradition, emphasizing the belief that all events occur according to God’s will. It is commonly used when referring to future events, expressing hope or intention contingent upon divine approval. For example, one might say, “We will meet tomorrow, Inshallah,” to convey the plan while acknowledging that its fulfillment depends on God’s will. ​

In Urdu, which has significant linguistic and cultural ties to Arabic due to historical Islamic influence, “Inshallah” is used similarly to its Arabic counterpart. It expresses the speaker’s hope or intention for a future event, always with the understanding that it will happen if God wills. The phrase maintains its original pronunciation and meaning, illustrating the deep cultural and religious connections between Arabic and Urdu-speaking communities.​

The influence of “Inshallah” extends to the Iberian Peninsula, where the phrase evolved into “ojalá” in Spanish and “oxalá” in Portuguese. Both terms are used to express a strong desire or hope for something to happen. This linguistic adoption dates back to the period of Al-Andalus, reflecting the profound impact of Arabic language and culture on the region during that era. ​

In Turkish, “Inshallah” is rendered as “inşallah” and is commonly used in daily conversations to express hope or intention regarding future events, always with the understanding that the outcome is subject to God’s will. This reflects the deep cultural and religious significance of the phrase within Turkish-speaking communities.

The widespread adoption of “Inshallah” across various languages underscores its profound cultural and religious significance. In many cultures, it serves not only as an expression of hope but also as a reminder of human limitations and the belief in a higher power governing the course of events. While its usage varies—from a sincere expression of intent to a colloquialism indicating uncertainty—the underlying acknowledgment of divine will remains a common thread.​

In contemporary times, “Inshallah” has also found its way into popular culture, literature, and media, further cementing its place in various languages and societies worldwide. The expression Inshallah was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1976 and decades before in the German dictionary.

Quranic Verses with “Inshallah” (إن شاء الله)

The Qur’an uses “Inshallah” to emphasize that nothing occurs save by God’s permission. Believers are instructed to invoke this phrase when speaking of future intentions, acknowledging that human plans only succeed if aligned with the divine will. Key Quranic instances include:

• Surah Al-Kahf (18:23–24): “And never say of anything, ‘I will do that tomorrow,’ except [when adding], ‘If Allah wills.’…” In this verse, the Prophet ﷺ is admonished not to make definite claims about the future without conceding contingency on God’s will. The accompanying guidance explains that humans have neither knowledge of the unseen nor independent power to ensure any act occurs​. If one forgets to say “Inshallah,” the Qur’an says to remember Allah and affirm hope in His guidance. The theological implication is clear: all future events are conditionally predicated on “mashī’at Allah” (God’s will)​. This teaches humility and reliance on God – even the Prophet must defer to God’s will, highlighting that no causal outcome is certain without divine decree.
• Surah Al-Qalam (68:17–29): The Qur’an narrates the parable of “the People of the Garden,” who schemed to harvest their crops without giving due share to the poor and explicitly neglected to say “Inshallah.” They confidently swore a plan to gather fruit in the morning “without making exception (i.e. without saying ‘if Allah wills’).” As a result, a calamity from God befell their garden overnight, ruining their harvest​ abuazraa.blogspot.com. This story vividly illustrates the folly of acting as if one’s own effort guarantees results. The destruction of the garden is portrayed as a direct consequence of their failure to invoke God’s will, underscoring that human plans have no efficacy unless God permits. The theological lesson is that contingency under divine will is not just pious etiquette but a reality – omitting “Inshallah” betrayed a mindset of self-reliance that God corrected through sudden loss.
• Prophetic statements of reliance: Several verses depict prophets and righteous people using “Inshallah” to defer outcomes to God. For example, Joseph (Yūsuf) greets his family entering Egypt with “Enter Egypt, Allah willing, in security” (Qur’an 12:99), and Moses says to Khidr “You will find me patient, if Allah wills” (18:69), while Ishmael tells his father Abraham “Do as you are commanded; you will find me, Insha’Allah, among the steadfast” (37:102)​. In each case, even prophets do not attribute future success to themselves – they condition it on Allah’s will. Such verses reinforce the doctrine of tawakkul (trust in God): believers exert effort but acknowledge that fruition lies solely with God. The phrase “Inshallah” thus encapsulates the Qur’anic view of divine omnipotence and human dependence – all natural events and human endeavors occur only if God decrees so. This ethos in the Qur’an lays a scriptural foundation that later theological doctrines like occasionalism build upon, by affirming that every outcome is contingent on the immediate will of Allah.

The cumulative message of these verses is that nothing has an autonomous guarantee of occurring – neither the next day’s plans, nor the yield of a garden, nor even a prophet’s resolve. Everything remains mashrūṭ bi-mashī’atillāh (conditioned on God’s will). This sense of radical contingency directly supports the occasionalist view that apparent causes (our intentions or natural processes) do not function independently; rather, Allah’s will is the true operative factor at every moment. In short, the Qur’anic usage of “Inshallah” impresses upon believers a worldview in which all causation is ultimately divine and not inherent in creatures.

Al-Ghazali’s Occasionalism

Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE), the eminent Ash‘ari theologian, articulated occasionalism in Islamic philosophy most famously in Tahāfut al-Falāsifa (“The Incoherence of the Philosophers”). Occasionalism is the doctrine that all causal relations are directly determined by God’s continuous will, with created things having no independent causal efficacy. Ghazali’s position was essentially an exposition of the Qur’anic principle “Inshallah” at the metaphysical level – in every instance of cause and effect, it is only “if God wills” that the effect occurs.

Causality as direct Divine Act: Al-Ghazali argued that what we perceive as cause and effect are in truth only sequences of events willed by Allah. He denied any necessary connection inherent in natural events, refuting the philosophers’ idea that causes produce effects by their own intrinsic power. In Tahāfut, he gives the example of fire and cotton: when a flame touches a piece of cotton, the cotton burns – not due to any inherent heat property of the fire, but because God directly causes the cotton’s combustion at that moment. If Allah withholds His will, the fire would have no effect – it is entirely “bi-idhn Allah” (by God’s permission) that burning occurs. Ghazali goes so far as to say it is possible in principle for the cotton to contact fire and not burn, or to burn without any fire, if God so wills​. This is not mere conjecture; he cites the Qur’anic miracle of Abraham emerging unharmed from Nimrod’s fire as evidence that fire does not necessarily burn. In that story, God commanded “O fire, be coolness and safety for Abraham!,” and the fire did not burn (Q21:69) – demonstrating God’s ability to suspend the usual correlation of fire with burning. For Al-Ghazali, natural laws have no independent force: they are only the habits (sunan) by which God normally operates​. What we call the “laws of nature” are really just the regular patterns of God’s action – a consistent divine custom, not a constraint on Him​.

Refutation of Necessary Causality: In line with this, Ghazali’s doctrine refuted the Aristotelian and Mu‘tazilite idea of necessary causality – the notion that given cause A, effect B must follow by necessity. He pointed out that our observation of events yields only correlation (A followed by B), not an actual inherent power of A producing B​. The apparent causal link is a product of God’s constant conjunction of those events, not a direct linkage. As Ghazali famously asserted, “the connection between what are believed to be cause and effect is not necessary.”​ For instance, we see fire and then see a burnt object, but we never perceive a “power” transferring from fire to cotton – the power is invisible because it is in fact God’s act​. Thus, only Allah’s will joins events together. He rejects the idea that objects have autonomous causal properties, viewing that as an infringement on divine omnipotence​. If fire could burn by itself or medicine could heal by itself, that would imply nature sharing in God’s power. Instead, Ghazali maintains that God is the sole causal agent – a fire is merely the occasion for God to execute the act of burning cotton, if He wills​. There is no binding law on God that He must cause burning every time fire meets cotton; He does so out of His chosen pattern, but could do otherwise.

God’s Continuous Will and Re-Creation: A crucial aspect of Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism is the idea that God’s creative will is continuous, not a one-time event. The world persists from moment to moment only because Allah recreates and sustains it at each instant. The Ash‘ari theologians described the world as being in a constant state of re-creation by God​. Al-Ghazali echoed this: every causal event is essentially a new creation. He argued that when a cause and effect seem to occur, God creates the effect in conjunction with the cause, not by the cause. In his view, an effect occurs with its cause, not by its cause (using the Arabic phrase ma‘ahu vs. bihi)​. For example, when fire touches cotton, God at that same moment creates the burning in the cotton. If the cotton remains intact, it is because God created no burning. Moreover, to keep an object in existence, God must will its existence at every subsequent moment, otherwise it would vanish. Ghazali states that the universe is only sustained by God’s immediate and renewed creative command at each time​. The uniformity of nature – the fact that fire usually burns cotton consistently – is explained as God’s custom (ʿāda) in creation, not the cotton or fire having any independent efficacy​. God’s habit is that He ordinarily causes similar outcomes in similar situations, which is why we observe stable causal regularities. But this regularity flows from God’s rational choice to act consistently, not from any necessity in the objects themselves​. In short, every moment’s existence and every cause-effect occurrence are direct products of the divine will (Insha’Allah).

Al-Ghazali developed these ideas in opposition to Islamic philosophers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) who held that God works through secondary causes and that certain causal connections are necessary. Ghazali’s occasionalism was a defense of Allah’s omnipotence: to posit “necessary” causes in nature, in his view, would be to limit God’s freedom. It also served to validate miracles – since no causal laws are inviolable, God can at any time suspend the usual order (as in Abraham’s miracle) without it being impossible or incoherent. Theologically, Ghazali’s stance aligns closely with the Qur’anic spirit of “Inshallah”: absolutely nothing, from a spark igniting cotton to a man waking up tomorrow, is beyond or outside the immediate will of Allah. All causes are merely occasions for God’s action, continuously subject to His decree.

Comparison with Islamic Schools: Ash‘ari, Maturidi, and Mu‘tazili Views

Islamic theology saw debates between schools on how to reconcile divine omnipotence with the observable cause-and-effect order of the world. The issue of whether secondary causes have real efficacy or are purely instrumental was a point of divergence among the Ash‘arites, Maturidites, and Mu‘tazilites. Each school’s stance on “Inshallah” and causation reflects its broader theological principles:

• Ash‘ari School (Occasionalist Stance): The Ash‘ariyya, to which al-Ghazali belonged, took a hard-line occasionalist view. They held that no secondary cause has any intrinsic efficacy – God alone is the true cause of every action in the universe. Ash‘ari theologians explicitly rejected the idea of causative power in created things, even describing the belief in independent secondary causes as a form of shirk (polytheistic “association” of partners with God) ​islam-science.net. In Ash‘ari doctrine, what we call “cause” is only the seen occasion, while the effect is created directly by God’s command. They formulated the doctrine of kasb (acquisition) to explain human acts: humans “acquire” acts that God creates in them at the moment of choice. Everything unfolds through direct divine intervention at each moment, which means the world is only sustained by a succession of instantaneous acts of creation ​en.wikipedia.org. The Ash‘ari view thus resonates strongly with “Inshallah” – every event happens only if God wills, in a literal sense. A classical Ash‘ari example is that fire does not cause burning – God does, every single time. They emphasized Quranic verses like “Allah is the Creator of all things” and the constant dependence of creation. The Ash‘ari perspective prioritizes Allah’s omnipotence and absolute will, sometimes at the expense of rational explanation of natural phenomena. In their lens, the phrase “Inshallah” is an acknowledgment of what is metaphysically true: created things have no power to bring about outcomes unless Allah immediately wills it. Natural causation is not real causation, only “customary sequence” (al-ʿāda) set by God​.
• Maturidi School (Intermediate Stance): The Maturidite theology (founded by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi) shares many similarities with Ash‘ari thought as both are Sunni orthodox schools. On the issue of causation, Maturidis also affirm that Allah is the ultimate cause of all things, but they tended to allow a slightly more rationalist interpretation of secondary causes. Some scholars argue that al-Maturidi himself held an occasionalist position akin to the Ash‘ari view, albeit formulated in his own way​. Like Ash‘aris, Maturidis believe nothing occurs without the will of God (“Inshallah” applied universally). However, in explaining phenomena, Maturidis were more comfortable acknowledging the reality of the natural order as part of God’s design. They taught that Allah has created causes and given things properties, through which effects usually occur – yet those causes have no efficacy independent of His sustaining power. In other words, secondary causes are instrumental (tools in God’s administration of the world), not independent. Some interpret Maturidi writings as incorporating elements of Mu‘tazilite thought, perhaps by emphasizing that God’s wisdom underlies the consistency of causes in nature​. The key nuance is that while Ash‘aris sometimes speak as if causes are mere illusions, Maturidis more readily concede that causes exist but their influence is totally contingent on Allah. They also diverged on issues of human free will: Maturidis assign a slightly greater role to human volition (within the scope of God’s will), which parallels their willingness to speak of created things having roles (by God’s grant) in what happens. Thus, a Maturidi would also say “fire burns by God’s will alone,” but might add that God has endowed fire with a nature that in general produces burning by His permission. This view maintains omnipotence while recognizing a stable order in creation. In summary, Maturidis uphold the spirit of “Inshallah” similarly to Ash‘aris – every outcome rests on God’s will – but tend to be less explicit in denying the causal language of nature. Recent scholarship on al-Maturidi confirms that he accepted occasionalism but not in an extreme form, attempting to balance divine agency with a rational cosmos​.
• Mu‘tazili School (Natural Causation Stance): The Mu‘tazilites, an earlier school of Islamic theology, took a very different approach. They championed God’s justice and human free will, and in general had a higher view of the efficacy of created beings (within limits set by God). Mu‘tazilites argued that denying real secondary causation undermines accountability and the rational order of the universe. They believed that Allah has endowed created things with certain properties and capacities through which causes produce effects in a regular manner. Thus, fire by its created nature burns, bread nourishes, and humans genuinely initiate actions – all by the power and permission God built into them, but not by a new miraculous command at each instance. In their view, to say “Inshallah” is to seek God’s blessing or allowance, but not to deny the causal relations that God Himself established in nature. They leaned on the Quranic idea that God “has created everything in due proportion” (Q25:2) and “ordained for all things a measure” (Q65:3), interpreting these as divine establishment of an ordered universe where causes reliably yield effects. Mu‘tazilite theologians accused Ash‘ari occasionalism of effectively making God the direct cause of evil acts and rendering His world unintelligible. Instead, they posited that humans create their own deeds (through power God has given them) – a doctrine diametrically opposed to Ash‘ari kasb. Secondary causes thus have real, albeit derived, efficacy in Mu‘tazilite thought. One Mu‘tazilite, Abu Hudhayl al-‘Allaf, even formulated that once God created substances and qualities, their interactions account for events (unless God intervenes extraordinarily). They would say fire burns by the power Allah invested in fire – so ordinarily fire will burn cotton, and if on some occasion it does not (a miracle), that is an exceptional suspension by God. This view aligns more with the Aristotelian philosophy of nature. A later critic of Ghazali, the philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes), essentially voiced a position similar to Mu‘tazilite reasoning: God is the ultimate cause, but He has established a system of secondary causes through which the world ordinarily operates​. Ibn Rushd argued that denying these secondary causes destroys human knowledge, for all science and reasoning rely on causal connections​. He noted that while in principle God could directly sustain us without food or burn without fire, in practice He does not mislead us – He normally acts through consistent natural laws, and when He breaks this pattern it is a recognized miracle beyond the usual scope of reason​. The Mu‘tazili stance thus sees “Insha’Allah” as acknowledging God’s sovereignty and ability to intervene, but it does not imply that God in fact micromanages every quantum of causation. Rather, they believe asserting a necessary link between cause and effect (by God’s design) is part of trusting the wisdom and justice of God who made a rational world.

In summary, Ash‘arites take “Inshallah” in the absolutist sense – literally every flicker of causation is only by God’s will, with created causes contributing nothing. Mu‘tazilites take “Inshallah” in a permissive sense – nothing escapes God’s will and decree, yet He willed a world where causes normally do have consistent effects (so His will usually manifests through secondary causes). Maturidis occupy a middle ground, affirming total dependence on God’s will while intellectually accommodating the idea of natural order to a greater extent. Despite these differences, all classical schools agreed that ultimate power rests with God and that He can override the world’s order at any time. The divergences were about how involved God is in every moment and how to describe the causal structure that we observe. Notably, both Ash‘aris and Maturidis considered their view a safeguard of pure tawḥīd (monotheism), whereas Mu‘tazilis felt their approach upheld God’s justice and human responsibility. Each perspective offers a different theological nuance on the Quranic principle symbolized by “Insha’Allah” – from the extreme occasionalist reading (absolute continual divine agency) to a more law-like deterministic reading (divine establishment of natural laws), with the truth for most Sunni theologians lying somewhere in between.

Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives

The question of causality and contingency is not only theological but also philosophical and scientific. Al-Ghazali’s occasionalism raises an intriguing dialogue with modern science: Does contemporary physics support or challenge the view of a universe constantly sustained by divine will? The relationship between occasionalism and science can be examined on two levels: the deterministic laws of classical physics and the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics.

Classical Determinism vs. Divine Contingency: From the Enlightenment through the 19th century, science largely operated under a paradigm of determinism. Classical physics (Newtonian mechanics) envisioned the universe as a clockwork governed by fixed natural laws. In a Laplacian view, if one knew all initial conditions and laws, one could predict all future states – implying a tightly bound chain of cause and effect, leaving little apparent room for moment-to-moment divine intervention. This outlook might seem to challenge Ghazali’s occasionalism: if natural causes reliably produce effects, one might argue secondary causes do have real efficacy. Indeed, the success of scientific laws led some thinkers (like Laplace) to famously declare that the “God hypothesis” was not needed to explain planetary motions. However, it is important to note that a methodological naturalism in science does not equate to a metaphysical conclusion. Many theistic scientists historically reconciled lawlike behavior with God’s continuous agency by seeing laws as the chosen means of God’s governance. In fact, Ghazali himself pre-empted this by saying the regularities of nature are expressions of God’s rational will (His habit)​. Thus, an occasionalist could view classical laws as descriptions of God’s customary action. Nonetheless, a strict occasionalist might contend that even deterministic laws only operate because God consistently wills them to—if He stopped, the sequence would break. Philosophically, David Hume’s skepticism about necessary causation (in 18th-century Europe) echoed Ghazali: Hume argued we never see a necessary force, only sequences, and the expectation of continuity is a habit of mind. This idea undermined absolute determinism by pointing out that the necessity we ascribe to causes is not empirically warranted – a point Ghazali made from a theological angle centuries earlier​. Still, classical physics as commonly interpreted would prefer a view closer to the Mu‘tazili: that God endowed nature with stable causality. For an occasionalist, the challenge is largely interpretational – science describes how events succeed one another, but not why they ultimately happen. Occasionalism would assert that the “why” is always God.

Quantum Mechanics and Indeterminacy: In the 20th century, physics underwent a revolution with quantum mechanics, which interestingly reopened the question of determinism. Quantum physics discovered that at subatomic scales, events are fundamentally probabilistic rather than strictly determined. For example, in the famous double-slit experiment, individual photons or electrons hitting a screen produce an interference pattern only in aggregate; any single particle’s impact is inherently unpredictable – it could land in a region or pass through a particular slit with only a probability, not certainty​. No matter how precise our knowledge, we cannot predict the exact outcome of a single quantum event; we can only calculate probabilities. This inbuilt uncertainty in nature’s core challenges the classical notion of necessary causation. As one physicist’s explanation notes: if one fires identical photons at a half-silvered mirror, about 95% are reflected and 5% transmitted – but one can never predict which photons will pass through on each try; each photon’s behavior is random within the probability distribution​. In other words, physics now tells us that the micro-level of the universe is not a deterministic machine but a realm of statistical outcomes. This aligns remarkably with occasionalism’s claim that there is no inherent causative necessity from one event to the next – the outcome could be different in each instance. The breakdown of strict causality at the quantum level “forms the heart of quantum mechanics” as Feynman said, and indeed “the detection of individual impacts is observed to be inherently probabilistic, inexplicable by classical mechanics.”​

For proponents of occasionalism, this indeterminacy can be seen as space for divine will. If physical determinism is not absolute, then one might philosophically interpret that God’s continuous governance could be exercised in the selection of each quantum outcome without violating any natural law (since the laws themselves only prescribe probabilities). In a sense, quantum physics shows a world that is contingent at its foundation, which an occasionalist could equate with constant dependence on God’s choice. Some theistic thinkers have indeed suggested that God “plays dice” at the quantum level – that what appears random to us might be the result of God’s minute control. Notably, Albert Einstein objected to the randomness of quantum mechanics, saying “God does not play dice with the universe,” to express his belief that there must be hidden determinism. But ironically, an occasionalist might respond: God can play dice in the sense that He is free to determine each event (the term “play dice” meaning unpredictability in outcomes). Thus, where Einstein used “God” metaphorically to argue for order, a believer in occasionalism might literalize the metaphor: quantum indeterminism is God’s chosen uncertainty, a sign of His immediate will at work rather than a fixed mechanical system.

However, we must also consider how mainstream science views this. Contemporary physics, while accepting quantum indeterminacy, typically interprets it as intrinsic randomness rather than theistic intervention. A physicist can acknowledge that events have no determined cause in the quantum sense (only probabilities), without leaping to “therefore God decides each event.” The prevailing scientific view is that quantum randomness is a fundamental feature of nature – in other words, nature allows multiple outcomes and which outcome occurs is genuinely random (with no physical cause determining it). Occasionalism would add an extra layer by saying “random” means “decided by God’s will each time.” This is a metaphysical interpretation not provable by physics experiments, but it is compatible with the data (since by definition an undetermined event could be determined by an unseen will). Some philosophers of science have noted this compatibility: since quantum mechanics doesn’t specify why one outcome happens instead of another in a single event, it doesn’t rule out that a divine will is selecting outcomes in accordance with the probability distribution. To an occasionalist, quantum laws might be the statistical pattern of God’s choices. To a naturalist, they are simply stochastic laws with no need for an outside chooser.

In terms of support or challenge: Quantum physics supports Ghazalian occasionalism to the extent that it undermines the idea of necessary causation and a self-sufficient deterministic universe​. It shows a universe where, at its very core, predictability breaks down and events are not bound by prior states in a straightforward way​. This resonates with the occasionalist notion of a universe that must be actively sustained – the “glue” between cause and effect is not found in physics itself. Additionally, modern cosmology indicates the universe had a beginning (the Big Bang), which dovetails with the idea of creation in time that Ghazali defended against philosophers who believed in an eternal universe. The continued existence of the universe, in theological perspective, requires continuous conservation by God – science doesn’t say this, but it also doesn’t explain why there is something rather than nothing at each moment (it just describes how things evolve given prior states). The Qur’an’s “Ayat al-Kursi” (2:255) is often cited in Islamic discourse to express that God’s sustaining power is unceasing: “He holds control over the heavens and earth; preserving them does not tire Him.” A believer might see the laws of physics as the means by which God effortlessly “preserves” the universe, consistent until He wills otherwise.

On the other hand, modern science can challenge crude occasionalism if taken to deny all secondary causes. The enormous success of scientific predictions and technologies suggests that treating causes as having consistent effects is valid and useful. For example, engineers design bridges assuming material properties (like steel’s strength) will behave reliably – and they do, without needing to explicitly invoke God to hold the girders. If an occasionalist insisted that only God’s direct willing holds the bridge, a scientist might reply that we have high confidence it will hold due to tested physical properties (which, while ultimately given by God, don’t capriciously change). Thus, while occasionalism is not disproved by science, an extreme form of it (expecting arbitrary violations of order) is discredited by everyday experience and empirical data. Islamic occasionalists themselves understood this; they acknowledged the stability of nature as Allah’s custom. The philosophical tension lies in whether this regularity is itself a created intrinsic nature (Mu‘tazili view) or just constant divine fiat (Ash‘ari view). Science, operating under assumption of regularity, arguably leans toward the former for practical purposes. Yet it’s worth noting that even scientists recognize limits: at the quantum level, and in chaos theory for complex systems, unpredictability is real. In these domains some have seen an analogy to theological contingency – one physicist, Arthur Compton, even suggested quantum indeterminacy provided room for free will and divine action.

In contemporary discourse, thinkers like the cosmologist George Ellis (who is also a Templeton Prize winner for contributions to science and religion) have argued that physics by itself cannot rule on metaphysical causation. Ellis points out that strict determinism is more of a philosophical stance now, and many scientists accept a degree of openness in the universe​. Atheist scientists may attribute quantum randomness to pure chance, whereas theists are inclined to view it as compatible with purposeful governance​. In essence, modern physics neither conclusively proves nor refutes al-Ghazali’s occasionalism, but it has shifted the conversation: the deterministic clockwork universe that seemed to sideline God has given way to a universe where uncertainty and contingency are fundamental. This shift makes the idea of a “constantly sustained universe by divine will” less at odds with science than it might have seemed under classical mechanics. The universe behaves as if at each moment a range of outcomes is possible and one is realized – a description oddly consonant with the belief that at each moment God “chooses” the outcome.

Philosophically, if one adopts occasionalism, one could say science is studying the patterns of God’s habitual action. Miracles would be exceptions where God chooses a different outcome than usual – and quantum theory even provides a natural place for unpredictability (though miracles in religion are usually macro-scale deviations, not just micro events). Some have even used quantum indeterminacy to argue for divine action that doesn’t violate physical law (because an improbable event could occur “by chance” which is actually by God’s choice). For instance, a highly unlikely quantum event could, in principle, produce a macro effect – science would call it a statistical fluke, a theist could call it a miracle.

In conclusion, contemporary physics tends to support the spirit of al-Ghazali’s occasionalism in showing that causality is not an inherent, necessary force in matter, especially at the fundamental level. The universe at its deepest level operates in a way that could be seen as consistent with continuous divine discretion. At the same time, the scientific emphasis on consistent laws challenges theologians to articulate occasionalism in a way that does not render the world anarchic. Most Islamic scholars historically did this by affirming God’s habit of maintaining order – thus science is essentially observing the sunnat Allah (way of God in the world), which He can override if He wills. The phrase “Insha’Allah” remains a humble reminder that for all our scientific understanding, ultimately nothing occurs except by God’s will, a principle that al-Ghazali’s occasionalism rigorously defends and that even modern science, with its limits, cannot overturn.

Epilogue

The explicit mention of “Inshallah” in the Qur’an encapsulates a theology of radical dependence on God’s will that directly feeds into al-Ghazali’s occasionalist doctrine. Quranic verses teach that every future event hinges on God’s permission – a lesson al-Ghazali systematized by denying inherent causality and asserting God’s immediate agency in all things. The Ash‘ari school embraced this view fully, whereas Maturidis moderated it slightly and Mu‘tazilis opposed it by upholding real secondary causation. Yet all agreed that “Allah wills” is the ultimate clause behind every occurrence. Modern physics, especially quantum mechanics, has introduced a vision of nature that intriguingly echoes the idea of contingency and absence of intrinsic necessity in causation. While science approaches these issues without reference to God, its findings of unpredictability and fundamental uncertainty dovetail with the occasionalist perspective that creation is not autonomous. Thus, the Qur’anic ethos of “Insha’Allah” finds resonance not only in medieval theological debates but even in contemporary reflections on a universe that, despite all laws and patterns, remains contingent – “God willing” – at its core.