ISLAMIC VIEW ON THE PUZZLE OF EVIL

It seems everywhere we look, we see people who are suffering. We see the
injustices of people being deprived of clean water, being forced to live in open-
air concentration camps, we see innocent children being bombed and dying
from starvation daily.
The suffering of people across the globe has led many to ask the following
question: “If God is considered as the Most Loving and Most Merciful, why
would God allow people to suffer?” Surely God must have the power to stop
these criminals, yet He continues to spectate while they suffer.
This sentiment about God being unjust for allowing the suffering of innocents
has led many to question their faith. Atheists claim this argument to be a
threat against the existence of an All-Powerful and All-Loving God and believe
it to be irrefutable. Although many have attempted to reconcile this question
of how an All-Powerful, All-Loving, and All-Merciful God can still exist despite
the global phenomena of innocent people suffering, the Quran provides a
solution to this problem. The Quran (islamic book) recalls the story of the
Prophet Moses who journeys out to meet a wise man named Khidr to learn the
divine wisdom given to him which provides the answer to this issue
As he reaches Khidr, Moses asks permission to accompany him on his journey
to attain knowledge that God has given Khidr and not him. Khidr accepts and
tells Moses that he, must be patient with him on this journey and not to
question his actions until he explains it to Moses. Moses agrees, and both men
begin their journey. As the men walked alongside the sea, a boat appears, and
Khidr asks if they could board the ship. Out of their generosity, the ship crew
allowed the men to board it without charging them a fee.
While relaxing on the ship, Khidr took a nearby axe and tore out a plank,
thereby damaging the ship. Moses witnesses this and questions Khidr’s
actions.
“Why did you do this? The ship crew allowed us to aboard with no charge and
you damaged it, which will cause this ship to sink. You have just committed a
horrendous action O Khidr”. And Khidr remind him that he must not question
his actions
As the men sat on the damaged ship, they noticed a sparrow drinking from the
sea. Noticing the sparrow drinking, Khidr said :“My knowledge and your
knowledge in comparison to the knowledge of God are nothing but like that
water which the sparrow has taken in its beak from the sea”. Once the
damaged ship reached the shore, Moses and Khidr excused themselves and
began to walk alongside the seashore. Khidr noticed some children playing
together and approached one of them. Khidr grasped the child and murdered
him before everyone, including Moses. Moses became astonished and
questioned the motives of Khidr:
“Have you killed an innocent child who hadn’t done anything? O Khidr, you
have done an evil act”. And once again Khadir told him to not question his acts.
Accepting his promise, Khidr continued his journey with Moses through an
unknown town. The men were starving from their journey and asked the
townspeople for food and hospitality. The people refrained from assisting the
men and forced them to starve. Realizing they needed to look elsewhere for
food, they began to relocate elsewhere. But before leaving, Khidr noticed a
damaged wall that had almost collapsed and began to repair it until it was
fixed. Moses questions the intentions behind Khidr’s kind gesture: “O Khidr,
why did you fix this broken wall for free? The people here ignored us and failed
to feed us while we continued to starve?” and once again Khidr told Moses to
not question his acts.
“As for the ship that I damaged, it belonged to a group of poor fishermen. An
evil tyrannical king was marching through the lands, acquiring every single
useable ship without pay. However, when he reached this ship, he ignored it
because of its defect and allowed the fisherman to keep it.”
“As for the child that was killed, his parents were righteous, and God knew this
child would grow up to cause grief, anxiety and pain to his parents. This would
be an evil child. Therefore, God would take his life and substitute him for a
loving, upright child for his parents.”
“And as for the village that neglected us hospitality, the wall belonged to two
orphans. Their father was a righteous man and had buried treasure
underneath this wall for his children. God wanted to preserve the treasure
until the children became mature.”
“This was the reasoning behind my actions, O Moses”.
During this story, every time Khidr conducted an action, Moses was confused
regarding the wisdom behind it. From the damaging of the ship to the murder
of a child, to the repair of the broken wall, everything Moses saw seemed
questionable. Yet to Khidr, this was done with wisdom.
Moses saw everything at its surface level and to him, everything he saw was
wrong. But when explained to him by a servant who is given knowledge by
God, everything begins to make sense. Then Moses sees the wisdom behind
destroying the ship, the killing of the child, and repairing the wall despite the
ill-treatment by the townsfolk. Without that wisdom, every action seemed to
be depressing, evil, and filled with suffering.
What Khidr stated compares the water the sparrow drinks as the knowledge of
the human being and the vast sea filled with abundant water as the knowledge
of God. God has the picture whereas we have the pixel. How much can we
really understand from the pixel of a picture?
Furthermore, the problem of evil only poses as a problem to those who
disbelieve in an afterlife, and those who believe this life to be the end-all. In
the Islamic tradition, ultimate justice will not be served in this life, but the next.
All the suffering of this life will act as redemption that will purify our sins.
Therefore, God is All-Good, All-Powerful but also All-Wise. Everything done by
God contains wisdom. Just because we cannot see the divine wisdom, does not
mean the wisdom does not exist. It can simply only be understood by those
who have received divine knowledge.
And what is the suffering of this world compared to eternal Paradise where the
most beautiful of gardens, rivers, and fruits reside – a place where children will
live happily with their Lord? Exposure to that bliss for even a moment will
make the oppressed forget all the ills they ever suffered in this world.