preference, it is reasonable to say that there exists among con-
temporary Christian theologians a predilection to stress
God’s moral purpose in creating free beings and to see God
himself as personally involved in the venture and risk of
human freedom.
Islam. In his book The House of Islam (1975), Kenneth
Cragg observes that because of its emphasis on God’s tran-
scendence, Islam “does not find a theodicy necessary either
for its theology or its worship” (p. 16). With one or two im-
portant qualifications, this is a reasonably accurate assess-
ment of the state of theodicy in a tradition that insists on sur-
render to the divine will (one meaning of isla ̄m) and finds
it blasphemous to hold that God is accountable to human
moral judgments. Nevertheless, while theodicy has not been
a major preoccupation of Muslims, there are, especially in
the earliest texts, implicit efforts to understand the sources
of suffering and why God might allow it to exist.
The QurDa ̄n. We know that one of the most persistent
explanations and justifications of human suffering traces that
suffering to free creatures’ abuse of their freedom. At first
sight, this free-will theodicy seems to have little footing in
the QurDa ̄n because of its repeated emphasis on God’s sover-
eignty and his absolute control over human behavior. In
su ̄rah 6:125, for example, we read:
Whomsoever God desires to guide, He expands his
breast to Islam; whomsoever he desires to lead astray,
He makes his breast narrow, tight....Or again, in 61:5:
When they swerved, God caused their hearts to swerve;
and God guides never the people of the ungodly.Although passages like these shape the later emphasis on pre-
destination in Islamic thought, they may not have this mean-
ing in the QurDa ̄n. For one thing, these utterances are fre-
quently used to explain the recalcitrance of Muh:ammad’s
opponents, and thus are more properly understood as affir-
mations of God’s ultimate control of the wicked than as
philosophical disquisitions on freedom. In addition, these
passages are offset by many others in which a substantial
measure of human freedom, initiative, and accountability is
assumed. “He leads none astray save the ungodly,” says surah
2:24, while su ̄rah 4:80 makes what seems to be an explicit
statement of the free-will theodicy:
Whatever good visits thee, it is of God; whatever evil
visits thee is of thyself.In addition, the QurDa ̄n displays two other themes associated
with the free-will theodicy. One is a view of suffering as a
test of righteousness. More than once the question is asked,
“Do the people reckon that they will be left to say ‘We be-
lieve,’ and will not be tried?” (29:1; 3:135; cf. 14:6; 2:46).
Because such testing can sometimes lead to martyrdom and
death, the QurDa ̄n also supports a vivid eschatological expec-
tation. Those who withstand the test shall have their reward.
All human deeds are said to be recorded in books kept by
the angels. These will be opened following the general resur-
rection on the day of judgment (yawm al-d ̄ın). Those whose
record is wanting shall descend to the Fire, while the righ-
teous shall dwell in the Garden (al-jannah) where their bliss
is depicted in spiritual as well as vividly material terms (surah
9:74; 75:23; 52:24; 56:17f.; 76:11–21).Later developments. If the QurDa ̄n’s perspective on suf-
fering and its implicit theodicy display substantial similarity
to some familiar positions in the Hebrew Bible and New
Testament, subsequent Islamic thought strikes off on a path
of its own. From the eighth century CE onward, the free-will
position becomes involved in a series of bitter disputes be-
tween the MuEtazil ̄ı school of “rationalists,” or “humanists,”
and more orthodox defenders of God’s sovereignty (includ-
ing his role as sole creator of human acts). Entangled in extra-
neous political conflicts, this debate continued for several
centuries, until the victory of the orthodox position through
the work of Abu ̄ al-H:asan al-AshEar ̄ı (d. 935 CE) and others.
What emerged was an extreme predestinarian position, ac-
cording to which not only suffering or blessedness but the
acts and volitions that lead to them are totally in the hands
of God. Al-AshEar ̄ı himself tried to secure some limited room
for human responsibility through a doctrine of “acquisition,”
according to which acts proceed from God but attach them-
selves to the will of the individual. Nevertheless, this teaching
remains overwhelmingly deterministic. An oft-quoted tale
presenting an imaginary conversation in heaven between
God, an adult, and a child captures the resulting orthodox
view. The child asks God, “Why did you give that man a
higher place than myself?” God replies, “He has done many
good works.” The child then asks, “Why did you let me die
so young that I was prevented from doing good?” God re-
sponds, “I knew that you would grow up to be a sinner;
therefore, it was better that you should die a child.” At that
instant a cry arises from all those condemned to the depths
of hell, “Why, O Lord! did you not let us die before we be-
came sinners.”
In the context of such determinism, all responsibility for
good and evil devolves upon God himself. Lest it be thought,
however, that God may legitimately be accused of injustice,
Islamic orthodoxy hastens to add that in his sovereignty,
God may not be subjected to human moral judgment. God’s
command is itself the defining feature of right, and what
God wills can never be morally impugned. The great medi-
eval theologian Abu ̄ H:a ̄mid al-Ghaza ̄l ̄ı (d. 1111) affirms that
“there is no analogy between his justice and the justice of
creatures.... He never encounters any right in another be-
sides himself so that his dealing with it might be a doing of
any wrong.”This emphasis on God’s omnipotence does not mean
that Muslims (any more than Calvinists) view God as a capri-
cious despot. On the contrary, their constant affirmation is
that God is “merciful and compassionate.” Yet in the en-
counter with suffering, a human’s response must not be to
complain, to question, or even to try to defend God. Hence,9118 THEODICY