Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – How Does a Loving God Send Calamities and Suffering (Theodicy)

Now this is quite a complex question to answer. If there is

justice, if there is a loving God, then how is it that we have so

called injustice and difficulties and calamities in the world? I

think the fundamental question

is where the problem lies.

Yes, he is a loving God.

He's a loving, compassionate, merciful God. But who said that

that was all that he was?

Right? So the issue here is that you see, anytime somebody asks you

a question.

They're setting parameters for you to answer within the binding you.

And sometimes that's where the problem lies. The logic is false

from the beginning, the initial premise is wrong.

So what we have to do is,

Allah has more than 99 names, just as He is the merciful loving one.

He is also the Avenger. He's also the Punisher is also the one who

gives harm, and so on and so forth. So once you've understood

the comprehensiveness of Allah and the God and His being, and how he

wants to do things, sometimes he's gonna use his Jellal sometimes

he's gonna use his Jamal, sometimes he's gonna manifest His

beauty sometimes gonna manifest His might, sometimes it's gonna

manifest is His Majesty. So

then there's no question about it. Now, why these things happen.

Obviously, they happen for a reason. Sometimes they happen

because Allah subhanaw taala wants to by people, like let's take an

example, a tsunami, people die in the many people dying. For a

person from a faith that only believes God is merciful, nothing

else is going to shake their faith, because they can't see

mercy that

the way we look at it, is that there's an element of Mercy here,

there could be an element of punishment as well. There's people

living in that area who pour

sick of life is better for them to be martyred in a in a tsunami

and be relieved of that problem.

And be honored as a martyr. But there's other people there who are

fit to be punished. So they've been punished.

And there's others who Allah subhanaw taala wants to raise

their status. So he's taken their home away. When Allah loves

somebody, non Muslims find it very difficult to understand this. And

you know, I only discovered that about two months ago.

I was in Switzerland, and a new Muslim, who'd become a sim about

four or five years ago. Right?

He told me, and so while you can learn a lot from him, because many

of us who are born as Muslims, we take things for granted.

Right? We take things for granted in understanding stuff and

everything. He says, Before I knew this, I used to think that every

difficulty everybody's gonna have setbacks and difficulties in their

life. Nobody's life is always 100% Perfect. There's always going to

be some difficulty or the other.

Now, if you think if you start becoming a believer in God, and

then you get difficulties and you don't know that Allah tests people

that way, and that actually, he wants you to do subpar. You start

you start thinking that God hates you. That's why you're having

calamities. He said, I used to think that every calamity

difficulty challenge I used to come I used to think God hates me

so I used to wonder what I'm doing wrong.

When I then discovered that

I'm BIA I should do home Bella and the Gambia, given the most test

and then those who are closest to them and when Allah loves somebody

epistola who

Allah subhanaw taala tested when he loves them,

to to really purify them. Sometimes the persons at Mal and

his actions or her actions are not high enough, puts them through

some difficulty, so that they have patience and they shoot up without

having to do anything. Why did the Prophet salallahu Salam have pangs

of pain before he passed away? And when faulty malady Allah Juana

said we're carrabba Abba. Oh, the pain of my father he says, la

curbar Allah be converted the herbalism after today there will

be no pain on your father. So why would you have to go with that? We

generally hear that sinners are given a painful death. He's

actually death was painless. But this was before that. This was

leading up to that time, the end moments not the actual soul

extraction. That was easy. All believers. for them. It's easy,

the good believers. But this is all final pushing, final ways to

elevate his status and punishment. That's why he says all ACC gamma

you aku ethnonym income

I get the pain of fever etc, like to have you do

that's how much is given to me but then my rewards are double as

well.

So I was once in an interfaith program, and we then broke up for,

into small groups

to discuss with each other.

So I was sitting there with I think there was an older woman and

I can't remember though to other people, and everybody was going to

contribute something from their religion. So I remember the Hadith

that a believer his status is quite amazing. The browser wasn't

an adjuvant the men for in Amara who kulula who hide all of his

situation, all of his states, they're all really good. Because

if he's afflicted, and he makes sober, that's good for him. And if

he is rich, if there's bounties coming, whenever there's

prosperity, and he gives thanks, then that's good for him. And life

is only these two situations are in between. And that woman just

reveled at this until the end, she was like, that's such a beautiful

statement. Because it tells you how to deal with life, the way

life is sober and sugar. So there is going to be difficulty in this

world and Allah wants to see how we will deal with it. He is not

promised that he was going to be easy for you. That's Jana. This is

difficulty and there's different reasons why Allah provides that

difficulty.

So why is the difficulty despite the fact that the gods are

merciful Lord, because he's not just merciful. He also has other

attributes that he manifest in the world, and purely from that

principle position, let's say the other thing is that he is the

owner of everything, he can do what he wants, just because we've

got a bit of intelligence. It's like, you know, this ball of woods

is fine, I can throw it or I can drop it down. I can do whatever I

want with it. It's mine. It's not mine, but if it was mine, right.

We are all Allah's in gnarly law. He were in LA he Raji Arun, he can

do what he wants with us. Now we're trying to judge him. We're

trying to provide some way of justice that he needs to abide by.

It's, it's very foolish, but if you want to understand this from

this purely rational, humanistic way that is possible. And if you

don't, then you will never understand it, but why, but why

you will never understand it's just one of those issues. But this

is I'm quite satisfied with this.

And we can't, you know, we can't convince everybody. That's that

I'm very satisfied with