Motgomery Watt, “İslâm’ın İlk Dönemlerinde Hür İrâde ve Kader” olarak tercüme edilen “Free Will and Pre-Destination in Early İslâm” adlı, doktora çalışmasında İslâm’ın kader inancını ele almış, kanaatini ayetler ve hadislere getirdiği yorumlarla desteklemek istemiştir. Söz konusu çalışmada hadislerle ayetler arasında tenakuz olduğunu iddia etmiş, ayetlerde irade özgürlüğü vurgusunun varlığını kabul ederken hadisleri fatalistik/cebriyeci olarak sunmak istemiştir. Ayrıca hadislerin uydurma olduğunu ileri sürmüştür. Konuyla ilgili ayet ve hadislere bütüncül bakabilmiş midir? Cebir ifade eden ayetler varken ayetleri değil de neden hadisleri hedef almıştır? Kader kavramı hür iradeyi de içinde barındırırken çalışmasına “Hür İrade ve Kader” adlandırmasını tercih ederek iradeyi kaderin dışında göstermek mi istemiştir? Yoksa islâm’ın ‘kader” inancını doğru kavrayamamış mıdır? Watt’ın çalışmasında hakikatle uyuşmayan yorumların yer aldığı görülmektedir. Kur’ân ile hadisin çeliştiğini, çelişkiler üzerine geniş çaplı bir inceleme yapılsa ciltler dolusu bilgiye ulaşılabileceğini, Kur’ân ile Hadisin müslümanlar arasında birbirine zıt iki büyük akımın oluşmasına neden olduğunu, hadislerin Kur’ân’a yabancı materyaller içerdiğini iddia etmiştir. Bu çalışmada ayetler ışığında İslâm düşünce ekollerinin değerlendirmeleri de dikkate alınarak hadislerin fatalist/cebriyeci bir içerik taşıyıp taşımadığı incelenecek, hadislerin kaynak tespiti yapılacak ve yukarıda belirtilen sorulara/sorunlara/iddialara açıklık getirilmeye cevap verilmeye çalışılacaktır. Watt’ın eserine aldığı hadisler ve hadislerle ilgili değerlendirmeleri tartışılacaktır.

Motgomery Watt, in his doctoral study titled "Free Will and Pre-Destination in Early Islam" translated as "Free Will and Pre-Destination in Early Islam", dealt with the belief in fate in Islam and wanted to support his opinion with the interpretations he brought to verses and hadiths. In the aforementioned study, he claimed that there is a conflict between the hadiths and the verses, while accepting the existence of the emphasis on freedom of will in the verses, he wanted to present the hadiths as fatalistic/forced. Has he been able to look at the verses and hadiths on the subject holistically? While there are verses expressing algebra, why did he target hadiths and not verses? While the concept of destiny includes free will, did he prefer to call his work "Free Will and Destiny" and want to show the will outside of destiny? Or has he not grasped Islam's belief in 'destiny' correctly? It is seen that there are interpretations in Watt's work that are inconsistent with the truth. He claimed that the Qur'an and the hadith are inconsistent, that if a wide-ranging study on the contradictions is done, volumes of information can be reached, that the Qur'an and the Hadith cause two major currents to be formed between Muslims, and that the hadiths contain materials foreign to the Qur'an. In this study, in the light of the verses, taking into account the evaluations of the Islamic schools of thought, it will be examined whether the hadiths have a fatalist / algebraic content, and it will be tried to clarify the questions / problems / claims mentioned above. The hadiths that Watt included in his work and his evaluations about the hadiths will be discussed. Watt started his work with a brief evaluation and an introduction to the sources he used. He started the second part by giving verses about destiny, then proceeded to evaluate the subject with hadiths, and in the following parts he tried to deal with the views of Islamic schools of thought. It can be said that Watt made relatively accurate assessments of the verses he included in his poem. However, he could not/did not show the same approach in the hadiths. In order to make people feel that the understanding of destiny, which is emphasized in the hadiths, is in a structure that does not allow freedom, he has especially included news that can be interpreted as algebra with a superficial view. According to him, completely free will never exists in Islamic thought. The hadiths promote fatalism. The Qur'an and the hadith are in dispute, volumes of material can be reached if this subject is researched, the Qur'an and the hadith have caused two major opposite tendencies and the hadiths contain materials foreign to the Qur'an. Watt tries to justify his argument by giving examples from the hadiths to which he attributed the meaning of coercion. In this article, related hadiths will be determined from the sources, then Watt's claims will be evaluated. Watt did not understand the concept of destiny correctly or did not want to understand it. Naming his work "Free Will and Destiny in the Early Periods of Islam" is the most striking example of this situation. Therefore, Watt could not or did not want to convey the Islamic understanding of destiny correctly. Instead of reaching an opinion based on the hadiths, he chose the hadiths that would confirm his preconceptions, and failed to interpret the hadiths he chose correctly. He did not look at the analyzes of the hadiths and the narrators of the hadiths he included in his work, he focused directly on the analysis of the text, and compared the hadith texts, which he assumed to express compulsion, to the verses emphasizing the full independence of man from the Qur'an, and claimed that the hadiths contradicted the hadith and therefore the hadiths were fabricated. He failed to present the hadiths to the Qur'an. Watt's assessment of two separate Islamic trends, one based on hadith and the other advocating the understanding of free will and the other of compulsion/fatalism, is not accurate either. Islamic schools of thought; It is possible to gather them under three headings: 'Fully Independent Man', 'Man Under Coercion' and 'Man with the Freedom to Make Choices Alongside Allah's Absolute Will'. These differences are not based on verse or hadith alone, but because of the success/failure of looking at the verses and hadiths holistically. In the verses and hadiths, there are content that can be interpreted as coercion, as well as content that can be understood as a fully independent human being. Unilateral approaches could lead to different results.