When discussing the meaning, role, and limits of reason, it is important to highlight a major, long-standing issue related to both religion and reason: the issue of Divine Will, good and evil, and Divine Nature. In this series of articles, we will discuss such aspects in some detail.

This is a philosophical and metaphysical issue that cannot be measured quantitatively. Of course, a believer in heavenly revelation and Prophethood differs with others on the perspective to it. All believers in heavenly messages believe in a realm that is beyond rational categorization but is recognized as inevitable in light of the fact of existence. This is the Inevitably Existent, of Whom everything is in need but Who is in need of nothing. This is the Everlasting Who, for us Muslims, cannot be subject to the laws governing created beings, as such laws are not a valid basis for comparison due to dissimilarity, let alone similarity. This is the meaning of: {And He has no match whatsoever}. The scope of reason here is limited to impossibility and inevitability: It is impossible that the universe exists without Him, and it is inevitable that He exists.

Existing creatures were originally nonexistent, and the coming of the nonexistent into existence logically entails an originator. In addition, engineering creatures so delicately and orderly requires that such originator is all-wise, all-able, and all-cognizant. This is the inevitable conclusion of sound minds that understand that nonexistence cannot originate existence, that haphazardness cannot originate orderliness, and that coincidence cannot originate delicate engineering. Allah says, {Or were they created by nothing or were they themselves the creators?} The attributes of that originator must be attributes of perfection, which belong to the sphere of inevitability, while their contraries belong to the sphere of impossibility. But heavenly revelation intervenes here to prove or deny what is established or denied by the mind.

Therefore, contradiction is inconceivable between the mind and heavenly revelation. Imam As-Sayrafi, a prominent Shafi`i scholar, said, “It cannot happen that the Book, Sunnah, or Muslim consensus come with something unacceptable to the mind. With this in mind, every act of worship stated in the Qur’an or Sunnah either (1) seconds the approval or disapproval by the mind (such as requiring thankfulness to Allah and prohibiting polytheism) or (2) brings forward something that is mentally neutral (such as Prayer and Zakah, which turned, by virtue of divine texts, from fifty-fifty possibility into utter obligation). Religious texts fall only under one of these two categories. The evidence that the mind can judge what is received through religious teachings is that it is authorized and assigned to distinguish between things”.

As we can see, there is no disagreement among scholars, whether rationally or religiously, ascribing all attributes of perfection to Allah, the One and Only. All His Acts and Commandments are an embodiment of truth, goodness, and beauty. Al-Amidi said, “There is an agreement that all Acts of Allah are good in every way and that all their contraries — untruth, evil, and ugliness — can never be His”.

What is the meaning of good and evil? And what are their features?

Good and evil are abstract, indefinite words. Good is whatever conforms to an ideal or moral though, virtue, justice, or interest; evil is the opposite of all such.

Can a universal phenomenon be described as good or evil in any way? And relatively to what? Here, perplexity arises among those who lack insight. We will try to illustrate the concept of good and evil with some examples — though each has its own particularity.

A farmer is burning the weeds in his field or slaughtering the diseased cattle. How do you see this? Contrarily, a vandal is burning others’ gardens or killing their animals — {Destroys crops and cattle} in the Qur’anic wording. How do you see this? The same act takes different responses depending on the intention and the doer.

Other examples include a doctor who cuts the skin of a patient in a surgery to save his life, compared to a criminal who injures someone deeply, or a judge who sentences a criminal to imprisonment or death to protect society against his malice, versus a tyrant who kills people with fighters and missiles. It depends on the motive and aim of killing, but it depends also on our perception of good and evil. In the next article, we will continue to discuss the criteria for good and evil as held by Muslim scholars as well as others.