1400 | Issue #23
Everybody knew the project would fail, they all sensed it. The stock dropped and nobody was surprised. Nobody said any of it before it happened. Ask them now and they all knew.
In 1975, a psychologist gave people accounts of historical events and told some of them how the events turned out. The ones who knew the outcome rated it as far more predictable than the ones who did not, and they insisted knowing the result had not influenced them at all. He called it creeping determinism. Psychology now calls it Hindsight Bias. Once you know how something ended you cannot unknow it, and the mind reorganises the past so that the ending was the only one that could have happened. The uncertainty you actually felt at the time gets deleted. What remains is a clean story in which you should have known.
I watched it happen in a meeting. A decision made months earlier by a full table, argued over, studied, signed off. Then the outcome came in bad and the whole table acted as if someone else had made the call. I did the same then I checked the meeting notes and they read like someone else had written them, but in reality they were written by me.
Then I found a text over 1400 years old that bans a single sentence.
The Prophet ﷺ said:
“A strong believer is better and is more lovable to Allah than a weak believer, and there is good in everyone, (but) cherish that which gives you benefit (in the Hereafter) and seek help from Allah and do not lose heart, and if anything (in the form of trouble) comes to you, don't say: If I had not done that, it would not have happened so and so, but say: Allah did that what He had ordained to do and your "if" opens the (gate) for the Satan.” (Sahih Muslim 2664)
Look at the order of the instructions before the ban. Cherish what benefits you, seek help, do not lose heart. The hadith is not telling you to stop looking at your decisions. It has just told you to go after what benefits you, which nobody can do without learning from what went wrong. What it removes is one specific sentence, the one that begins with “if” and ends with a different past.
The research says the alternative past is something your mind creates after it knows the ending. The hadith says it is worse than that, it is an opening for Satan. Then it gives you the replacement. Allah decreed, and what He willed He did.
The Quran describes what the “if” does once it is inside you.
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَكُونُوا۟ كَٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ وَقَالُوا۟ لِإِخْوَٰنِهِمْ إِذَا ضَرَبُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ أَوْ كَانُوا۟ غُزًّۭى لَّوْ كَانُوا۟ عِندَنَا مَا مَاتُوا۟ وَمَا قُتِلُوا۟ لِيَجْعَلَ ٱللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ حَسْرَةًۭ فِى قُلُوبِهِمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ يُحْىِۦ وَيُمِيتُ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌۭ
“O you who have believed, do not be like those who disbelieved and said about their brothers when they traveled through the land or went out to fight, “If they had been with us, they would not have died or have been killed,” so Allāh makes that [misconception] a regret within their hearts. And it is Allāh who gives life and causes death, and Allāh is Seeing of what you do.” (Surah Ali ‘Imran, 3:156)
The verse names the sentence about death as the cause of regret, “If they had been with us”. The grief would be there either way. Two verses earlier, after the battle of Uhud, when people were saying it would not have happened if the decision had been theirs, the answer comes flat.
قُل لَّوْ كُنتُمْ فِى بُيُوتِكُمْ لَبَرَزَ ٱلَّذِينَ كُتِبَ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْقَتْلُ إِلَىٰ مَضَاجِعِهِمْ
“Say, ‘Even if you had been inside your houses, those decreed to be killed would have come out to their death beds.’” (Surah Ali ‘Imran, 3:154)
Psychology found that the mind invents an obvious past after the fact, and “if only” is what grows out of it. Islam does not argue with the finding. It tells you what that sentence does to a heart, and gives you what needs to be done instead. Regret nothing you could not have known.
The past did not become obvious. You just found out how it ended, and the “if” that feels like insight is the only thing in the story that was never true.
Something to do: The next time you catch yourself saying “if only” about anything, finish the sentence out loud with the replacement instead, Allah decreed, and what He willed He did, then write down the one thing you actually learned.
Something to think about: Which decision in your life do you still describe as obviously wrong, and did it feel obvious on the day you made it?
Quran translations: Sahih International. Hadith translations: Sunnah.com.