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Who we are is based on our memories that is a persons personality and identity is based on his memories. These memories come from the place , time and people around us. Which is not under humans control. So if u say a person is good or bad it all depends on his memories i.e memories of his past helps the person to make decisions. So how can you say a person is responsible for his own actions how does freewill explained considering the above fact. For example a person is born to a parents who are evil and the people around him are bad and he grows by being exposed to evil around him rather than good so he becomes evil due to his memories (because that's how brain works it uses past memories to make future decisions). When later in his life when he needs to take moral decisions he of course will choose evil. So how could you explain that person is responsible for growing up to be evil.

Question:

How is free will justified in those people who are born and raised in a bad environment?

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  • question is very vague , not clear.
    – user12159
    Apr 26, 2015 at 18:24
  • What details should be specified to make the question clear??
    – user12535
    Apr 26, 2015 at 23:52

1 Answer 1

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It is true that people grow into what they live in. This is why in Islam you are not punished without getting the true clear Message of Islam.

Unfortunately, most of the Muslims give Islam a bad name so most people who are not born as Muslim will have an excuse in the hereafter.

Even if a person was raised in an evil manner, that person still has conscience and understanding of right and wrong and what he is doing is wrong.

The question that you should be asking is what if the Person doesn't have a compass for compassion or right and wrong - medically, but seems normal elsewise. For such people I personally think that Allah will forgive them since they are included in the mentally disabled group.

@user12535 If the user is mentally challenged or has no control over their evilness I believe that Allah will not hold them accountable. The prophet PBUH said:

Four people will protest on the Day of Judgment: a deaf person who does not hear anything, an insane person, a decrepit person, and one who dies in a period where no Prophet was sent.

Also Islamically it is forbidden to talk about who will and who will not go into heaven/hell, as the decision is ultimately to Allah (Allah can even decide to abolish hell altogether thus he wishes). Some people would say it is OK to do so, my answer is the following hadith:

كان رجلان في بني إسرائيل متواخيين ، فكان أحدها يذنب ، والآخر مجتهد في العبادة ، فكان لا يزال المجتهد يرى الآخر على الذنب ، فيقول : أقصر ، فوجده يوما على ذنب ، فقال له : أقصر فقال : خلني وربي ، أبعثت علي رقيبا ؟ فقال : والله لا يغفر الله لك ، أو لا يدخلك ( الله ) الجنة فقبض أرواحهما ، فاجتمعا عند رب العالمين ، فقال لهذا المجتهد : أكنت بي عالما ؟ أو كنت على ما في يدي قادرا ؟ وقال للمذنب : اذهب فادخل الجنة برحمتي ، وقال للآخر : اذهب إلى النار . قال أبو هريرة : والذي نفسي بيده ، لتكلم بكلمة أوبقت دنياه وآخرته

Which translates to 2 Israeli people, one who was very pious and one who was a sinner. The religious person said to the sinner, "By Allah, Allah will never forgive you". In the end Allah says to the sinner you go into heaven by my mercy and to the religious person to enter hell.

Technically speaking, if Allah judge us by our actions, no one will enter Heaven (Except for those promised it by Allah). It is by Allah's mercy that people will go into heaven, we do good and worship him so that his mercy will apply to us.

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  • "Also Islamically it is forbidden to talk about who will and who will not go into heaven/hell, as the decision is ultimately to Allah (Allah can even decide to abolish hell altogether thus he wishes)." There are many scholars who explicitly say that a qadi judging someone a kafir means that person is considered as an inhabitant of hell; among them, al-Ghazali in his faysal at-tafriqa.
    – G. Bach
    Apr 9, 2017 at 20:56

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