Shakiel Humayun – Why Evil Doesnt Disprove God 65th Sermon
AI: Summary ©
The concept of evil is related to the creator of the universe and is based on people's actions and experiences. It can lead to suffering and punishment, and suffering and pleasure are important factors for succeeding life. The world is nothing but good and pleasure, and the test of judgment is for the righteous to understand the concept of pain and suffering. Free will and evil are important measures for understanding the world and the future.
AI: Summary ©
Throughout history,
people have struggled
with the concept of evil on this earth.
Some went
and said
that God is good,
so he cannot
create evil on this earth,
and so they created a second God
making a God for good and then they
have a God for evil.
Others
said that this evil on this earth
cannot be by the will of Allah,
so they denied the Islamic concept
of destiny which is known as Qadr.
And recently
some people
have said because
evil exists,
God cannot exist because God is good and
if he is good why would he allow
evil to exist.
So some people use the existence of evil
as a premise
to deny God's existence.
Islam has a well balanced
view
of evil and its existence
in this earth
and
how it's related to the creator of the
universe.
First of all, Allah subhanahu says Allahu That
Allah subhanahu
is the creator of everything
and he is the one, the supreme,
meaning anything that exists in this
universe besides Allah Subhanahu, he is the creator,
the good,
the bad of it, all of it. He
is the creator. There is no second creator.
That is because Allah is the creator and
everything else besides him
is creation and there's nothing in between. There's
no part God, part creation, there's no hybrid
version.
And this is further explained by the prophet
Muhammad
sallallahu
alaihi wasallam when he said in a dua,
in his supplication.
When he said to Allah subhanahu
that the good is in your hands
and evil
is not to be attributed
to you, to Allah subhanahu.
What does this mean? That evil is not
to be attributed to Allah subhanahu.
There are 3 things
that we learn from this supplication of the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Evil is not attributed to God almighty.
The first thing we learn from this is
there is no such thing as absolute
evil.
Absolute
evil does not exist in the universe.
And this is why the prophet
said evil is not to be attributed to
you, which means whatever
evil exists or bad that exists
on the face of this earth,
there is a wisdom
to it. So it's not absolute
evil.
Just to give an example,
let's say a person has a certain
disease in a certain limb or certain part
of the body and the doctors say we
have to amputate this hand to stop the
spread of this disease.
Now for this person
cutting that hand off,
amputating that that hand is bad.
It's evil for this person to lose this
hand,
but there is wisdom behind it that if
this hand is not cut off, it will
infect
the whole body and the person can lose
his life.
So while it's this it's this uncomfortable and
there's discomfort in cutting that hand off or
losing that hand in life later on, there
is a greater good. There is a wisdom
behind it where the person
can save his life.
That's number 1. That there is no absolute
evil that exists in this on the space
of this earth
or in this universe.
Number 2, the second thing is that
if evil does exist on this earth,
then man is the cause of that evil.
If there are calamities on this earth,
then man is the cause of that calamity.
Allah Subhanahu Wa'ala says,
Allah subhanahu wa'ala said that whatever
calamity
misfortune
befalls you,
it is because of what your hands have
earned
and he pardons a lot.
Meaning the difficulties and the trials and tribulations
and the calamities and the evil and the
misfortune that happened
it's because of our sins our wrongdoing.
Allah subhanahu also said
that whatever good
befalls you, it is because it's from Allah.
And whatever evil befalls you, it's from your
own selves.
So the cause of evil in this universe
is mankind.
Mankind
is the cause for the misfortune and calamities,
even earthquakes
and tsunamis.
Allah has built the earth
based on cause and effect that when man
sins there will be viruses,
there will be plagues,
there will be hurricanes,
there will be tsunamis. These things will increase
and impact mankind.
And Allah Subhanahu made this clear
where
he
said
where Allah Subhanahu
said that Fassad corruption has spread on the
land on on the sea. Why is there
chaos and corruption
throughout the land and the sea? Allah Subhanahu
continues
because of the of what the hands of
the people have earned
It's because of, the sins of mankind, the
oppression, the corruption,
the sinning, the disobedience,
the disregard of Allah's guidance.
This causes
more chaos on the earth,
but Allah subhanah
even in this cause and effect is merciful.
He said
so they may taste
some
of what they have done.
Imagine if Allah had compensated us for all
the evil that we do on the face
of this earth. What would this earth look
like? Well, Allah said
so they may taste some of what they
have done. Why?
Why is Allah making us taste the evil
effects of our evil?
Allah continues by saying
the plagues come, the earthquakes come, the tsunamis
come, there is loss of wealth, there's misfortune
so that they may return
to the guidance of Allah. It's a wake
up call. It allows us to think
when we're living our routine life and all
of a sudden a misfortune happens. It's a
disruption in our life. It's a disruption in
our routine
and that enables us to start thinking and
that's the time where we should assess our
lives and say I need to be better
because I was created on this earth.
This earth is a test so that we
were created
to excel in good. Am I excelling in
good? And good is defined by the Quran
and the sunnah of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam.
That's number 2. Number 3
that evil is not to be attributed to
Allah.
The third point is since man is the
cause of all the evil on the earth,
then out of etiquette,
we don't specifically and directly
attribute evil to Allah Subhanahu.
Ibrahim alayhi salam, he said,
he said, speaking about Allah Subhanahu, he is
the one who has created me and then
guided me.
He is the one
who feeds me and gives me drink.
But then
Ibrahim Alaihi Salam says
but
when I become sick he cures me. Notice
when it came to guidance he says Allah
guides me. When it came to provision
he said Allah is the one who gives
me food and drink but when it came
to something evil like being sick he didn't
say
that Allah
made me sick. He says
and when I become sick
he cures me. So
means that evil is not to be attributed
to Allah out of etiquette
because no specific or direct evil is to
be attribute to Allah because man is the
cause for the evil that exists on the
face of this earth.
So the question, why is there evil on
this earth?
Is that a question for God Almighty?
Why is there evil on this earth is
a question for man to answer
since we've been given free will, the choice
to do good or evil. Why is there
evil on this earth is an answer is
a question we need to answer. And then
why are there evil effects of the evil
like calamities that happen
is a question we need to answer.
We understand that
due to our evil actions calamities come about.
What about the righteous?
Why do the righteous have misfortunes? Why do
the righteous people have
have loss of wealth and suffer and have
pain and sickness? Why that? Why do the
righteous also go through that?
Yes, it's true that calamities and pain and
discomfort comes because of our sins
but the righteous also go through that because
for the righteous it's a test where Allah
subhanahu
said that surely we will test you
with fear
and hunger
and loss of,
of of wealth and life and loss of
your fruits.
This is the test for the righteous as
well that will you be righteous only when
you're wealthy?
Will you be righteous only when your loved
ones are alive? You have a loss of
life or you lose some wealth? Is that
when you start saying I'm not going to
excel in good anymore? I'm not gonna follow
the guidance of Allah? So these things also
come about to the righteous but in the
form of an exam as a test.
And so
this
test
that happens is also for the righteous to
understand the concept
of pain.
If there were no calamities on this earth,
if there was no pain, if there was
no discomfort,
we would never understand pleasure.
Imagine this world being nothing but good and
only pleasure. We would not know what pleasure
is.
The only way we understand
pleasure and relaxation
is after we feel
and we experience
discomfort
and fatigue
and and pain.
That's when we appreciate pleasure. And this is
why Allah subhanahu wa'ala when he says about
the people in paradise,
that they're gonna drink wine in paradise.
But this wine has no does not create
any vain talk or sinfulness.
How would we know what sinfulness is if
we did not see those that evil on
this earth?
How do we know what pleasure is if
we don't understand
what its opposite is, which is punishment?
How would we understand what punishment in the
hereafter means if everything was good in this
life and this life is a test? How
would we know what the hellfire is? How
would we know
what we how can we concept conceptualize
pain as Allah subhanahu
said
that the punishment hereafter is more intense
and more lasting.
And so Allah is telling us it's more
intense because we can understand
the intensity to a degree in this life.
So if this life is a test, there
must be pain, there must be pleasure
because the result of a test is that
there will be eternal pleasure,
eternal punishment
which exists in the universal eternal court of
Allah subhanahu called the day of judgment. And
for us to understand that eternal pain, eternal
punishment, we need a snippet of that pleasure
and pain in this world to understand what
this means. Otherwise there will be no test.
There is no pain there is no reward
and punishment for the test and we will
understand what those things mean.
But despite we have pain and discomfort and
punishment in this world
Allah's goodness still shines through
through every pain, through every punishment, through every
difficulty.
The prophet Muhammad
said
or any fatigue
or any sickness or illness
or
any
sadness
or even grief that preoccupies
him
except that Allah
will wipe away some of his sins. So
even when we do evil and we have
evil consequences of our evil, there's still goodness
that shines from Allah because there's no such
thing as absolute evil that when we go
through that evil it is wiping away our
sins if we bear with it with sabr
and patience. So my dear brothers and sisters
the idea of
there being
a world
with no evil
doesn't make sense.
Someone can say, okay. I understand the concept
of the amputation
that there's some wisdom behind
it but what about some extreme cases?
What's the wisdom
behind a woman being raped and beaten? I
can understand it with the amputation the guy
is saving his life.
What about a woman being raped and beaten?
What's the wisdom behind that?
The wisdom behind that is that Allah Subhanahu
has
allowed free will
and a free will
is going to exist, which is a powerful
tool for the human being to acquire paradise
if he excels in good. If free will
is going to exist,
then it means people have the freedom
to commit crimes.
People will have the freedom to commit evil.
So you can't have your cake and eat
it. If there's going to be free will,
there's going to be evil. We can't say
we want free will, but then there should
not be any evil that exists on the
face of this earth.
So the question again is not why there
is evil on this earth. Again, the person
who who is doing the *, this is
an action of man, not an action of
God almighty. And we know God almighty has
forbidden these things.
Where Allah subhanahu he forbade
indecency,
immorality,
evil,
and aggression and oppression.
So this is again going back to the
same premise that if any evil happens on
this earth, it's
it's it's because of the cause of mankind
and there's no such thing as absolute evil.
There is a wisdom behind it, and that
one underlying wisdom for every single evil that
exists through man is our free will. And
the fact that we have free will means
that this is a test and the fact
that we have free will and sometimes some
criminals
may not be caught in this world
only leads us to understand the logical
belief in the hereafter which is the day
of judgment and internal court, a court that
will happen hereafter where criminals who are not
caught in this world will be punished intensely
more intense than this world in the hereafter
and thus we see Allah subhanahu
system is balanced
where there is no absolute evil but there
is good that permeates in everything and there
is wisdom that permeates in all of these
matters. I ask Allah subhanahu to
enable enable us to have good thoughts about
Allah subhanahu and enable us to pass this
test by excelling in good.