- Open Access: https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/4f5894a2-8e7f-40a4-b639-7852e1019bd2/613314.pdf
- al-Māturīdī’s view that evil is a tool of God’s wisdom to lead humankind to knowledge of God’s existence and the Sufi notion that evil and suffering are instruments of God’s discipline on the spiritual path. Similar ideas are found in the free-will theodicy of the Mu≠tazilī ≠Abd al-Jabbār who maintains that God inflicts pain not only as punishment for sins but also for the purposes of testing, warning and deterring (Heemskerk, Suffering in Mu≠tazilite Theology, 151–6).
- Ibn Sīnā explains that evil, which he understands metaphysically as imperfection (naq$s) and adam—a term that I will translate variously as “nonexistence,” “privation” or “lack”—is necessary to some things for them to be what they are. By way of example, he argues that burning is necessary to the perfection of fire even if fire occasionally burns someone. If such things did not involve evil, they would in fact be something else, but they must exist as they are for the maintenance of the universal order. In addition to the nonexistence of absolute evil and the necessity of relative evil to the perfection of things, Ibn Sīnā also speaks quantitatively about evil. He affirms that the amount of evil in the universe is very small compared to the great amount of good (Ibn Sīnā, Al-Shifā±: Al-Ilāhiyyāt (2), 414–422. Ibn Sīnā, “Al-Risāla al-≠arshiyya,” 16, also attributes wise purpose (!hikma) to evils. For further analysis of metaphysical evil in the thought of Ibn Sīnā, see Abū Zayd, Mafhūm al-khayr, 112–118, 152–159; and Inati, The Problem of Evil, 65–101).
- Other parts of the Islamic tradition elaborate further answers as to why evil is necessary for the best possible order. In I!hyā± ≠ulūm al-dīn, al-Ghazālī roots the necessity of evil in the principle that things cannot be known except by their opposites. Health is not enjoyed without illness; the blessed in Paradise would not know their blessedness without Hell; and perfection is not known without imperfection (Al-Ghazālī, Ihyā ulūm al-dīn, 4:258–9 (at the end of “Kitāb al-tawhīd wa al-tawakkul”, Ormsby, Theodicy, 40 and 64–9, provides a translation and analysis of this text. The idea that things are known through their opposites is also found in al-(Hallāj and others, especially in reflection on the fate of Iblīs. On this, see Awn, Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption, 122–150). Ibn Arabī employs an additional explanation for evil, what Arthur Lovejoy in his classic The Great Chain of Being calls the “principle of plenitude,” which locates the good in the greatest possible variety (Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 52f).
- For Ibn Arabī, God bestows existence on the cosmos for the great good of making Himself known. Evil and imperfection, which are paradoxically no more than privation and otherness from the sole reality of God and yet real in that they thwart God’s Law and human purposes, are necessary in order to afford God the possibility to manifest the infinite diversity, the great plenitude, of His names. Everything in existence reflects a divine name such as All-Merciful, Giver of Life, Giver of Death, Honorer, Humiliator and so forth. These names extend in number beyond the traditional ninety-nine to infinity. Nonetheless, Ibn ≠Arabī maintains that, out of courtesy for God, we should address God only with names that He has revealed. We should not, for example, call God Liar or Ignorant (Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, 33–44, 289–297. For briefer treatment of these themes, see William C. Chittick, Imaginal Worlds: Ibn al-≠Arabī and the Problem of Religious Diversity (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994), especially Chapters 2, 3 and 8).
- Ibn Taymiyya’s Evil Attribution Typology (Attributing Evil to the Generality, the Secondary Cause or the Elided Agent)
- In Minhāj, Irāda, Kasb, Jabr, (Hasana and a few other texts Ibn Taymiyya asserts that evil must not be attributed directly to God but rather in one of three other ways, which he presents in a recurring typological form (Irāda, MF 8:93–7; Kasb, MF 8:400–1; Tā≠a, MF 8:446–7; Jabr, MF 8:511–2; Fāti!ha, MF 14:21; (Hasana, MF 14:265–6; Thulth, MF 17:94–6, 99; and Minhāj, 3:142–5/2:25–6, 5:408–411/3:102). This three-fold typology appears in diverse contexts with varying degrees of fullness. Occasionally, it appears as a hermeneutic grid comprehending the ways that evil is attributed in the Qur±an or in both the Qur±an and the Sunna (MF 8:94; and Jabr, 8:511). Most often, however, the shaykh cites it as a general statement of how evil is attributed. In the first type evil “falls within the compass of the generality (≠umūm) of created things,” or “falls within the compass of the generality,” or, more tersely, is attributed “by way of the generality.” In the second type, evil is attributed to its secondary cause (sabab), its agent cause (al-sabab alfā≠il) or the creature (makhlūq). In the third type, evil is mentioned without reference to its agent.
- The Attribution of Evil in the Qur±an
- As an example of the first type in which evil is attributed to the “generality,” the shaykh customarily cites, “God is the Creator of everything” (Q. 13:16, 39:62), or, “He has created everything” (Q. 25:2). These verses do not explain what it means for evil to fall “within the compass of the generality” except to direct attention away from God’s creation of evil specifically and to His creation of all things in general. More will be said about the interpretation of this type below. The attribution of evil to its Ibn Taymiyya often cites, “Say, ‘I seek refuge with the Lord of the daybreak from the evil of what He has created’” (Q. 113:1–2), that is, from the evil instigated by God’s creatures. The shaykh’s standard example of the third type is the quranic statement about the jinn: “We do not know whether evil is willed for those in the earth or whether their Lord wills rectitude for them” (Q. 72:10). Here, the agent willing evil, presumably God, has been elided and the verb “to will” put in the passive voice. In the two instances of the typology in Minhāj, Ibn Taymiyya observes that all three types are found in the first chapter of the Qur±an: “Guide us in the Straight Path, the path of those whom You have blessed, not those upon whom is anger, and not those who went astray” (Q. 1:6–7) (Minhāj, 3:143/2:25 and 5:410/3:102).
- In these verses, God is the agent ( fā≠il) of blessing (first type). The agent of anger has been elided (third type), and the evil of going astray is attributed to creatures themselves (second type). The shaykh also gives this illustration in Jabr, but he presents the earlier verse, “Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds” (Q. 1:2), as the example of the first type (Jabr, MF 8:511). Ibn Taymiyya provides no additional quranic examples of the first and third types. Moreover, the third type receives no further discussion at all. Elision of the agent of evil is no more than a rhetorical device or form of courtesy that the shaykh finds the Qur±an using to avoid attributing evil to God. In Irāda the shaykh gives several more quranic examples of attributing evil to human secondary causes: “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves” (Q. 7:23); “When an affliction comes to you, even after having dealt one out twice as great, you say, ‘From where does this come?’ Say, ‘It is from yourselves’” (Q. 3:165); and “Any good thing that comes to you is from God, and any evil thing that comes to you is from yourself ” (Q. 4:79) (Irāda, MF 8:95). Ibn Taymiyya also illustrates the attribution of evil to its secondary cause with brief quotations from the quranic story of the guide who led Moses through three ordeals (Q. 18:60–82) (Jabr, MF 8:512; and Irāda, MF 8:95). These verses concerning Abraham and Khi#dr show not only that evil is attributed to creatures but also that good comes from God. The human agent gets sick, sinks a boat and kills, but God rights a leaning wall and cures the sick.
- Evil Is Good in God’s Wise Purpose, and Good Far Exceeds Evil
- ]Ibn Taymiyya does not clearly specify what he means in the first type of the evil attribution typology by evil falling “within the compass of the generality of created things” (Irāda, MF 8:94.). In the first of these three ways, Ibn Taymiyya maintains that what creatures regard as evil is good by virtue of God’s wise purpose. The following from Minhāj is typical: “If God—Exalted is He—is Creator of everything, He creates good (khayr) and evil (sharr) on account of the wise purpose that He has in that by virtue of which His act is good (!hasan) and perfect (mutqin)” (Minhāj, 3:142/2:25). A nearby passage extends this to more unseemly things: “God is Creator of illnesses, aches, hateful odors, ugly forms and noxious bodies like snakes and human excrement on account of a profound wise purpose in them” (Minhāj, 3:144/2:25). In (Hasana, the shaykh underscores that what makes all God’s deeds good is wise purpose while what makes human evil deeds evil is a lack of wise purpose. Ibn Taymiyya grounds the doctrine of God’s wise purpose in quranic texts showing that all God’s creative acts are good and true. Most commonly, he cites, “The handiwork of God who perfected everything” (Q. 27:88), and, “Who made good everything He created” (Q. 32:7) (Minhāj, 3:142/2:25, 5:409/3:102; Irāda, MF 8:94; Jabr, MF 8:512; and Fāti!ha, MF 14:21).
- In Fāti!ha he adds, “We did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between them except with truth” (Q. 15:85), and, “[Those who] reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], ‘Our Lord! You have not created this in vain’” (Q. 3:191) (Fāti!ha, MF 14:21). These last two verses and several others denying aimlessness and vanity in God’s creative work are given in Thulth, a commentary on Surat al-Ikhlā$s (Q. 112) that will be discussed at greater length below (Thulth, MF 17:95–6, 99. The additional references are Q. 6:73, 15:85–6, 21:16–7, 23:115, 38:27, 44:39 and 75:36). In several places, the shaykh also quotes the hadith, “Good is in Your hands, and evil is not [attributed] to You,” to affirm the goodness of all that God does (Kasb, MF 8:400; Jabr, MF 8:511; Fāti!ha, MF 14:18; (Hasana, MF 14:266; Thulth, MF 17:94; and Minhāj, 5:409/3:102).
