Argument, broadly: In the Qur’an, God is described as the master of evil and good, whose identity is concealed behind many veils. If the identity of the master of evil and good remains unknown to followers of the Islamic faith except through the Qur’anic text, hadiths, and sunna of Prophet Muhammad, humans during their life-time are unable to embody evil or good in their purest quality. Through the Qur ’an, hadiths, and sunna, Muslims of the pre-modern era could find guidance in coming to the precipice of divine goodness by practicing virtuous and pious behavior— know-ing oneself, acting with refined conduct towards others, and living for and by the words of God. Conversely, one may come close to evil through unvirtuous acts such as environmental devastation, accumulation of wealth, or abuse of power but never be characterized as evil. In this way, humans (both as individuals and society at large) vacillate on a spectrum between good and evil, experiencing both unvirtuous and virtuous behavior with self and others, falling in and out of faith.

Include: concept of adab as practice of coming close to God through virtuous con-duct, fear/piety towards God, knowing oneself and cultivating an internal conscious-ness of one’s own behavior, mentality, and piety.

“In the two-stage process of human development, mankind is not born perfect but rather perfection lies in the future. To grow into that perfect being while exercising genuine freedom requires a certain ‘distance’ from God in a world where God is not overwhelmingly evident but where humankind has the freedom to grow to know and love God.” (109)

• Christian theology background

“It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never ‘radical’, that it is only extreme and that is possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is ‘thought-defying’ as I said because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots and the moment it concerns itself with evil it is frustrated because there is nothing.” (112)

“With the exception of a few medieval thinkers, the issue of evil was not approached directly but rather subsumed within the larger discussions around the unity of God and the goodness of God. A dominant theme in Sufi literature was to argue that there is really nothing in existence except God. God was the only Absolute, the only manifest truth, and evil was really a name for not being.” (114)

“The Beloved takes on so many different formsHis beauty expresses itself in varied artistryMultiplicity is there to heighten the charm of UnityThe one delights to appear in a thousand garbsThe same idea has been referred to in the verse.” (114)

“In the Bible the tree is regarded as the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ or the ‘tree of conscience’, whereas in the Qur’an the tree is the ‘tree of eternity and pos-session’… In the Islamic tradition, Adam already had God-given knowledge, and his succumbing to Satan’s whisperings is for the specific promise of immortality; Adam finally relents when Satan swears the promise of immortality in God’s name.” (115)

“Satan himself cannot change God’s creation on his own; he needs the weakness and vulnerability of humankind for creation to change. Satan neither owns the world

nor humankind, but he does know that we humans have the choice and that we are not bound by God to do the good. The assumption here is that creation is essentially good but open to the corrupting passions of humankind.” (116)“In Iqbal’s view, it is not that God desires to keep humankind from becoming more aware but Adam’s inherent human impulse is to reach out for autonomous experi-ence and knowledge; his sin is that of being too inquisitive.” (117)

“However one understands this narrative, at one level the Qur’anic story is essen-tially a story of struggle, but not alienation from a transcendent God. Firstly, evil is not absolute; for only God is absolute and therefore evil, appearing in time, can only be transitory and temporary, limited to this world. Secondly, Adam outranks Iblis in creation’s hierarchy and therefore, despite the power of evil as personified through Satan and his passions, all humankind has the potential to be victorious over Satan, i.e. over their own passions that lead them astray.” (119)

“Adam’s transgression is not a repeated theme in the Qur ’an, nor is he set up as the origin of all subsequent human wrongdoing because Adam is already forgiven for his ‘slip. Adam must now experience distance from God to understand what near-ness was.” (120)

“The Qur’an itself does not give any abstract analysis of tragic evil and human loss, but repeats the theme of human propensity to do wrong and the divine essence to forgive.” (122)

“If anyone does evil or wrongs his own soul but afterwards seeks God ’s forgiveness, he will find God most forgiving, most merciful” (Q 4:110) (123)

“The verses do not in themselves tell us what constitutes evil, except that evil is that which takes you away from God. There is also a strong sense in these verses that evil here refers to moral evil, the wrongdoings which we bring about intention-ally, which we do to ourselves or to others.” (123)

• moral evils can also be done unto oneself. Morality is not only conceived through the ways in which we relate to others and to God, but also to ones own soul— the siphon through which divine intentions are related.

• If we choose to look at natural evils in a pre-industrial/pre-colonial context, they are largely out of the hands of human beings. If we look into natural calamities and the suffering of the poor or children in a post-colonial/industrial context, these are the result of imbalances of power caused and maintained by humans. In reality, natural evils occur to a degree— poverty and natural disas-ters are part of human existence— the exacerbation of natural evils occur when humans attempt to embody evil which, in the Qur ’an, is derived from an attempt at ‘eternity and possession’. These qualities in their purest form belong to God— the truest sin therefore becomes the attempt to embody God’s quali-ties

“Those who are patient seeking the face of their Lord, establish prayers, spend from what we have bestowed for their sustenance, secretly and openly and ward off evil with good, for those people the end is the eternal home.” (Q 13:22, 123)

“God does not forgive that any partner be associated with him. But he forgives any-thing else to whom he pleases. Whoever associates partners with God has devised a great sin.” (Q 4:48, 125)

“God has written down the good deeds and the evil deeds. Then he explained it thus, ‘He who has intended a good deed and has not done it, God writes it down with himself as a full good deed, but if he has intended it and done it, God writes it down with himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times of many times. But if he has intended an evil deed and has not done it, God writes it down with himself as a good deed, but if he has intended it and done it, God writes it down as one evil deed.” (Hadith on pages 127-128)“Observing the good and abstaining from the bad is essential for the attainment of ultimate salvation, though human repentance and God’s mercy are constant re-minders of our innate propensity to do bad things and God ’s power to forgive. Trust (tawakkul) and patience (sabr) must form part of righteous devotion.” (128)

“However, those Muslim thinkers who did consider human wrongdoing did not look at evil as the ultimate tragedy of creation, and human suffering as an abstract en-tity of the world; they did not speak of evil in some pure state because it seems, if not impossible, extremely difficult to define pure evil. Rather, they tried to reconcile the inevitability of human wrongdoing and the necessity of divine forgiveness in the face of a merciful and benign creator. Evil is problematic but wrongdoing definitely exists and wrongdoing is relational as it harms others an ourselves. Yet wrongdoing is closely associated with a God who forgives, and wants to forgive, for an unforgiv-ing God is not God.” (134)

“Furthermore, while the divine breath is an essential element in the completion of humankind, it does not explain how and if this makes humanity godlike in any way. This is not because there is no reference to images of God in the Qur ’an but becuse the dominant message of the Qur’an is that ‘nothing is like him [God]’ (Q 42:11). There can be no confusion between the Creator and the Created.” (146)

-“God does not reveal himself to humanity nor does he resemble humanity.” (146)

“The Qur’anic God is intimately but not openly tied to the lives of his creation. God retains the element of secrecy of self by speaking only through inspiration or from behind a veil, never revealing himself directly to humankind. The secrecy motif is presented throughout the Qur’an in various ways; God hides and reveals; God knows the secrets of our hearts but human beings do not know the secrets of God.” (147)

“God the Almighty has said, ‘Whoever shows enmity to a friend of mine, I shall be at war with him. My servant does not draw near to me with anything more loved by me (ahabba ilaiyyi) that what I have made obligatory upon him and my servant con-tinues to draw near to me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him (uhib-bahu). When I love him (ahabtuhu) I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of me, I would surely give it to him; and were he to ask me for refuge, I would surely grant him it’” (158-159)

“Without spiritual knowledge there can be no love; the stronger the knowledge the stronger the love because love is not merely an emotion but the highest form of cognition.” (160)

-Tie back to quote about the tree of eternity and possession. One cannot have full knowledge of God but one can have knowledge of oneself, of others, and

attempt to be in closeness with God through pious study of the Qur’an, hadiths, sunna, etc.

“This overwhelming mercy is a mystery, for it is essentially a plea from God to hu-mankind not to despair of God’s mercy. Mercy, unlike love, is not bilateral— human beings cannot have mercy on God, but God chooses, indeed desires, to be merciful to human beings.” (161)

“Love here is is concerned with the ethical behavior of humankind to each other to which God responds. In acting upon those virtues that God encourages we are hon-oring God’s preferences for human behavior. God’s dislike for certain human charac-teristics are the traits that human beings should not like in themselves as they take us away form God, for example, arrogance, waste etc.” (164)

Christiaan PfeiferMarch 2, 2016Muslim Ethics and Religious LawKristin SandsEssay #1

“The Beloved takes on so many different formsHis beauty expresses itself in varied artistry

Multiplicity is there to heighten the charm of UnityThe one delights to appear in a thousand garbs

The same idea has been referred to in the verse.” 1

God displays himself in a multiplicity of manners while never revealing his true na-

ture. Through Islamic doctrine humankind can begin to understand the virtues and

qualities of God. By way of these subtle revelations God cultivates an essence of

unity among humankind in the direction of divinity, piety, and morality. This philo-

sophical lesson drawn from the Sufi quote above provides a point of departure for

understanding humankind’s relationship to both good and evil within classical Is-

lamic doctrine. Good and evil as defining concepts of human behavior and spiritual-

ity allow us to complicate how and why humans relate to God. While it seems that

humankind can never embody good or evil in their purest sense, concepts tangen-

1 114, The Good Muslim

tial to good and evil such as virtuosity, piety, mercy, power, inequality, and mortal-

ity, allow followers of the Islamic faith to better understand their relationship (or

lack thereof) to God. Throughout her book The Good Muslim: Reflections on Classi-

cal Islamic Law and Theology, Mona Siddiqui refers deeply to the Qur’an, hadiths,

and other Islamic literature to elucidate the relationship between evil and love in Is-

lam, bringing readers to a clearer understanding of the ways in which humankind

embodies evil or good and how this defines humankind ’s relationship to God. Using

Siddiqui’s reflections as a point of departure, I argue that humankind can never be

purely good or evil as these qualities in their divine essence belong to God. Rather,

humankind vacillates on a spectrum between these two, constantly performing be-

haviors characterized as evil or good while never becoming good or evil themselves.

Through the Qur’an, hadiths, and sunna of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims may

find guidance in coming to the precipice of divine goodness by practicing virtuous

and pious behavior— knowing oneself, acting with refined conduct towards others,

and living for and by the words of God. Conversely, one may come close to evil

through unvirtuous acts such as environmental devastation, accumulation of

wealth, or abuse of power. As God is the master of good behaviors such as mercy,

compassion, and forgiveness in the Islamic doctrine, I argue that humankind is in-

clined towards good behaviors, attempting to embrace and enact these divine quali-

ties of Islamic piety.

Humankind as Neither Evil nor Good

Throughout the Qur’an and other Islamic texts, humankind is never described

as evil nor good. Rather, we find that humans are described in a constant war be-

tween embracing a path towards the promises of Satan or the qualities of God. Us-

ing the story of creation in the Qur’an, we may begin to understand how humanity

has vacillated between good and evil from its genesis. Siddiqui explains,

In the Bible the tree is regarded as the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ or the ‘tree of conscience’, whereas in the Qur’an the tree is the ‘tree of eternity and possession’… In the Islamic tradition, Adam al-ready had God-given knowledge, and his succumbing to Satan’s whis-perings is for the specific promise of immortality; Adam finally relents when Satan swears the promise of immortality in God’s name.2

From the beginning of humanity in Islamic doctrine, humans have sought out knowl-

edge which may bring them closer to the qualities of God. The tree of eternity and

possession represents qualities which belong only to God— never ending life and

eternal possession; but both are never achievable within the scope of human life.

While the Qur’an considers embodying the qualities of God to be a great sin, it

seems that Satan is the singular figure who has seen this transgression through

with success. A verse from the Qur’an states, “God does not forgive that any partner

be associated with him. But he forgives anything else to whom he pleases. Whoever

associates partners with God has devised a great sin.”34 In the Qur’an’s story of cre-

ation, Adam accepts Satan’s promise of immortality because Satan swears as a

partner of God. Since Adam attempts to grow closer to God through Satan ’s decep-

tion, he is never truly able to associate himself with God as a partner with equal

power— his inability to do so differentiates him from evil as embodied by Satan.

While humankind may carry out evil behaviors such as leveraging power, accumu-

lating wealth, or dehumanizing other aspects of creation, these attempts of em-

bodying a Godlike sense of authority are limited to the span of human life. While hu-

mans may possess in this lifetime, humans are not eternal, differentiating them

vastly from God and rendering them incapable of an all-encompassing character of

evil.

It is this same inability to attain God like qualities in the manner of evil which

renders humans unable to attain goodness in its purest sense. Throughout Sid-

2 115, The Good Muslim.3 Qur’an 4:48, Found in 125, The Good Muslim.4 146, The Good Muslim.

diqui’s analysis of the Qur’an and other holy texts, she does not mention humankind

as entirely good but rather characterizes them through virtuous or ethical acts. In

the same way that God is described as the singular entity which has eternity and

possession, God’s ability to understand good in its purity emerges through his abil-

ity to make judgments. Throughout the Qur’an God evaluates and ascribes value to

the behaviors of humans, rather than rendering finite judgments on the all-encom-

passing character of humanity. Siddiqui quotes a Hadith which explains:

God has written down the good deeds and the evil deeds. Then he ex-plained it thus, ‘He who has intended a good deed and has not done it, God writes it down with himself as a full good deed, but if he has in-tended it and done it, God writes it down with himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times of many times. But if he has intended an evil deed and has not done it, God writes it down with himself as a good deed, but if he has intended it and done it, God writes it down as one evil deed.5

Because God renders judgments between good and evil behavior among humans, it

seems as though God becomes the arbiter of good and evil, with humans unable to

ever know either of these in their purest sense. Where the embrace of evil and good

behaviors differ, however, is God’s desire for humans to internalize and emulate his

character through virtuous and pious behavior. Unlike the unforgivable embrace of

evil through association with God’s eternity and possession, God encourages human

beings to embody good behaviors and attempt to draw nearer to him. As the Hadith

above explains, good deeds which are imagined and enacted, “God writes it down

with himself as from ten good deeds to seven hundred times of many times. ” While

God becomes the knower and master over good and evil, with humans making good

and bad choices or behaviors in their lifetime, the essence of human behavior in the

Qur’an is the potential for the victory of God’s mercy and compassion over eternal

power.

Humankind ’ s Embrace of God and Virtuosity

5 127-128, The Good Muslim.

The human experience of tension between evil and good as a major theme

throughout the Qur’an emerges as an example of the imperfection of humanity and

nearness to God for followers of Islam. In Siddiqui ’s analysis of the Qur’an, she fre-

quently reiterates the compassionate, merciful, and forgiving nature of God which

characterize his divine goodness. In order for humankind to understand what an

embodiment of good looks like within a human lifespan, one cannot be purely good

in God’s sense— one must relent to the human propensity for sinfulness and retreat

away from God. Siddiqui explains, “Adam’s transgression is not a repeated theme in

the Qur’an, nor is he set up as the origin of all subsequent human wrongdoing be-

cause Adam is already forgiven for his ‘slip’. Adam must now experience distance

from God to understand what nearness was.”6 As explained in the previous section,

Adam himself never becomes evil but moves away from the innocent knowledge of

and closeness to God with which humankind is born.7 Despite his transgression, God

has already forgiven him for relenting to Satan’s promise of immortality because of

the imperfection of human nature and God’s divine, unconditional mercy. Siddiqui

elucidates this succinctly,

However one understands this narrative, at one level the Qur’anic story is essentially a story of struggle, but not alienation from a transcen-dent God. Firstly, evil is not absolute; for only God is absolute and therefore evil, appearing in time, can only be transitory and temporary, limited to this world. Secondly, Adam outranks Iblis in creation ’s hierar-chy and therefore, despite the power of evil as personified through Sa-tan and his passions, all humankind as the potential to be victorious over Satan, i.e. over their own passions that lead them astray.8

While humans possess the capacity for wrongdoing, the Qur ’anic message is one of

evil’s necessity in revealing humankind’s capacity for drawing back to God and the

divine innocence with which humans are born. As the Qur ’an promulgates a story of

6 120, The Good Muslim.7 117, The Good Muslim.8 119, The Good Muslim.

the victory of good over evil, the very existence of evil becomes necessary for God

to reveal his defining qualities of mercy, forgiveness, and compassion.

While it may not be possible for humans to embody God’s unconditional be-

havior towards his creation, Islamic doctrine reveals the possibility to begin doing so

through the presence of God in everyone and by encouraging followers to engage in

pious practice of God’s virtues. Siddiqui quotes a formative Hadith which notes:

‘When I love him (ahabtuhu) I am hearing with which he hears, his see-ing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of me, I would surely give it to him; and were he to ask me for refuge, I would surely grant him it.’9

As God emanates throughout all aspects of humankind, the possibility for closeness

with God is manyfold. Since the Qur’anic story is one of continuous struggle be-

tween evil and good, where humans fall privy to the temptations of evil through be-

haviors such as arrogance or greed, piety becomes the most important factor in the

struggle to embody goodness within this lifetime. Siddiqui notes, “Observing the

good and abstaining from the bad is essential for the attainment of ultimate salva-

tion, though human repentance and God’s mercy are constant reminders of our in-

nate propensity to do bad things and God’s power to forgive. Trust (tawakkul) and

patience (sabr) must form part of righteous devotion.”10 While God may be forgiving

for evil behaviors, it seems that cultivating self-understanding, acting with refined

conduct to others, and conscious piety become essential aspects to a holistic and

divine relationship to God. While humankind may not reap any benefits from these

ethical and spiritual pursuits within the scope of human existence, the temporal

quality of evil and the transcendent aspects of good give birth to a universal ‘charm

of Unity’ as expressed in the Sufi verse quoted in the beginning of this reflection.

9 159, The Good Muslim. 10 128, The Good Muslim.