Bakht (luck or chance) is a term used in Islamic philosophy for explaining events whose occurrence does not appear to conform to the recognised system of cause and effect. This idea arose from the perception that there are certain phenomena that deviate from the order ruling nature, and consequently cannot be explained by the normal laws of causality. In discussing bakht and ittifāq (coincidence or spontaneity), Muslim philosophers have tended to explain such phenomena in the basic framework of causality.

The first philosopher seriously to investigate chance and probability…