No I do not think that it is the question of God's will. It is, to be more precise, the question about HUMAN's WILL, i.e. is it free or not.

And there is no single answer to the question about free human will.

In the period of early Abbasi Khilafat, a well known Muslim sect known as "Al-Muatzillah" considered human will to be free. They used to say that since Allah is "Adil" (i.e. Munsif) so He will surely reward or punish according to deeds of humans in their after life. their point of view was that if human will is not free then God cannot be justified in punishing humans for their wrong deeds because by not having any free will, those humans were just bound to perform those bad deeds.

So according to Al-Mutazillah school of thought, if human will is not free and so by being just the victoms in the hands of any predetermined fate, those humans do bad deeds, then under these conditions, God would not be considered to be "Adil" if He punishes those wrong doers in their after life. But since God does not do injustice, it means that human will is free and since human will is free, so humans are rightfully liable for their good or bad deeds in their after life.

Since Al-Mutazillah emphasized on the "Justic" of God, so they also used to call themselves as "Ahl-e-Adl-Wal-tauheed".

And for information, "Sunni" sect in Islam emerged as the reaction to this view of Al-Mutazillah. In response to Al-Mutazillah's calling themselves as "Ahl-e-Adl-Wal-tauheed", those reactionists started calling their ownselves as "Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat". Before it, they were known as "al-Asharies".

And it also should be considered that what is considered as "Golden Period" of Muslims in the fields of science and philosophy etc, was actually the result of the emergence of this type of progressive views of al-Mutazilah that they rejected the false notion of any rigid fate. So first ever prominent Muslim Scholar i.e. Abu-Ishaq-Alkindi was the follower of Mutazillah faith. Later Islamic Scholars like Al-Farabi and Ibn-e-Sina extended the views of Alkindi in further depths.

The sunni sect later on at last came to power and after assuming power, they forcefully eliminated the views of Al-Mutazillah including such means as destroying their books also. They then promoted the belief in pre-determined fate in the Islamic societies. It was this over-emphasis on the belief in the pre-determined fate that ultimately resulted in the end to that Golden period of Muslim science and wisdom. When Muslims adopted the belief in the pre-determined fate, then they could not give birth to any other prominent scholar from among them.

It is also important to mention that the progressive religious views of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan were actually the attempt to re-introduce the old (eliminated) views of al-Mutazillah among his contemporary Muslims of Sub-continent so that they may again make progress.

Thanks!