Divine Design - A rational theory of Luck

خُدی کو کر بُلند اتنا کہ ہر تقدیر سے پہلے خُدا بندے سے خود پوچھے: بتا، تیری رِضا کیا ہے

[Elevate your selfhood (khudi) to such heights that before every destiny is written,God Himself asks you: ‘Tell Me, what do you wish it to be?]

This couplet of Allama Iqbal is so famous that it needs no introduction. Yet a correct appreciation of Khudi is essential. Khudi (selfhood) is like a double-edged sword. On one side, it gives us confidence and lifts our morale to pursue our dreams. On the other side, it can lead either to arrogance or to frustration.

Arrogance arises when we overlook the dignity of others and believe that our success is entirely self-made. Frustration arises when failure makes us see our shortcomings as irreversible, and we lose hope—becoming blind even to our remaining strengths—until we fall prey to depression.

The usage of Khudi in this couplet kept us in thoughtful unease until another of Iqbal’s compositions provided clarity, as follows:

خُدی کا سِرِّ نہاں لا إلہَ إلّا اللہ خُدی ہے تیغ، فَساں لا إلہَ إلّا اللہ

[The secret of the Self (Khudi) is: There is no god but Allah.The Self is a sword, and its sharpening stone is: There is no god but Allah.]

Here, Khudi has been defined as effort (the blunt sword), which succeeds only in accordance with Divine Design (the sharpening stone). This introduction of Divine Design as a determining factor completes the argument in the first couplet and removes the limitations that lead to either arrogance or frustration. It is similar to the addition of epsilon (ε) in an inferential statistical model to account for unknown error or uncertainty.

In other words, this eases the limitations of the causal theory—which holds that a cause is sufficient for its effect—and instead aligns with the producers-product theory, where multiple producers (factors) combine to create a product (effect). The producers-product theory is well explained by R. L. Ackoff in his book Creating the Corporate Future. Ackoff, a leading proponent of systems theory, inherited this philosophy from Singer Jr. through C. W. Churchman. He illustrates it with the example of corn: a seed of corn, though necessary, is not by itself sufficient to produce a corn plant. If the seed alone were sufficient, it would grow even if thrown into the ocean or the desert. Other producers—such as soil, water, and sunlight—are also required for the emergence of the corn plant.

Even the known producers may fail if Divine Design does not intervene. This Divine Design, or unknown factor, is often referred to as luck. Luck, however, does not obviate the necessity of effort. Thus, acknowledging Divine Design along with effort not only saves us from arrogance or frustration, but also leads us to introspect and seek the unknown with humility. And this, in fact, is the very purpose of being human, or of Khudi (selfhood).