The problem of evil in Islam

Islamic engagement with the problem of evil unfolds under a stronger doctrine of divine sovereignty than most Christian theodicy. In the Qur'an, God is al-Hakim (the Wise) and al-Adl (the Just), but also al-Qadir (the All-Powerful) whose decree encompasses every event. The question is therefore not whether suffering is compatible with God's goodness — the Qur'an insists that it is — but how to understand the wisdom behind it.

The early kalam disputes between the Mu'tazila and the Ash'ariyya set the terms of the classical debate. The Mu'tazila, rationalists, held that God's justice required genuine human freedom and that God could not will evil; human agents are the real authors of their wrong actions. The Ash'ari school, which became dominant, rejected this. God decrees all things, including the acts of his creatures; to ask why God has willed a particular evil is to forget that divine wisdom surpasses human comprehension. This is often summarized as iman bi'l-qadar — faith in the decree.

The Qur'an frames worldly suffering primarily as a test (fitna) and as a site of patience (sabr). Surah 2:155 — 'And we will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient' — is the locus classicus. The afterlife does the heavy theological lifting: injustice in this life is balanced by the Day of Judgment. Modern Muslim philosophers like Fazlur Rahman have argued that this framework offers a more coherent resolution than the Christian free-will defense because it takes God's sovereignty seriously without pretending to justify every particular evil.