On p. 83f we remarked that, according to the Quran itself, Allah does not ‘love’ or ‘approve of’ evil and sinners.
All orthodox Muslims maintain that everything which exists is created by Allah. The creative will of Allah does not apply to one category of things to the exclusion of another, and Allah wills the existence of all contingent things, whether they be good or evil, profitable to man or harmful.
There has, however, been some questioning among the orthodox as to whether Allah ‘loves’ or ‘is satisfied’ with all that He wills. ‘Does Allah,’ it has been asked, ‘love the unbelief of the unbeliever and is He satisfied with it?’ Some of the orthodox prefer to think of the love of Allah as being manifested only in His beneficent activity. They say that the word does not indicate that Allah entertains feelings of tenderness toward His creatures, but should be understood in the light of His providence and His bestowal of benefits. It is contrasted with the wrath of Allah and His chastisement.
Asharite theologians understand Allah’s love in a more general sense and closely relate it to the operation of His will. They say emphatically that Allah is satisfied with all that He wills, and this situation not only applies to His material creation but also to matters of faith and unbelief. Allah not only loves belief but He also loves impiety and is ‘satisfied with’ a punishable unbelief. Everything is Allah’s creation, everything occurs by His will and intention, and He is satisfied with it.
For this reason the Asharites combated the unorthodox Mutazila opinion that evil occurs in this world in spite of Allah’s disapproval. They accused the Mutazila of believing in an incapacity in Allah,[1] and appealed to the well-known dictum, sanctified by tradition, ‘That which pleases Allah, is; that which does not please Him, is not.’ Allah is satisfied with what He wills, and wills according to His satisfaction.
According to the Asharites, therefore, the divine love applies to all the operations of Allah’s will. This love is understood to be a ‘satisfaction’ rather than love in the Biblical sense of the term, and Allah’s satisfaction extends to belief and unbelief, evil and virtue.
After establishing the harmony between the divine will and its love, the orthodox who hold this opinion agree with all other schools of orthodox thought in stating that Allah cannot be the object of love in man. They declare that the human will can only refer to that which is to come, and which does not, as yet, exist. The human will and its love cannot therefore apply to Allah, because Allah is eternal and cannot become the object of the human will. Man cannot love, or find satisfaction, in Allah Himself, and the ‘love’ of man for his Lord can only be realised in submission and obedience to His will.
Notes
1 It must not be assumed that, after the defeat of the Mutazila at the hands of Asharite and Maturidite theologians, their teachings found no place in Muslim thought. The Shi‘a Twelvers and the Zaidiya have adopted many of the Mutazila theses, and in such circles Ali (the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and the fourth Khalifa) is erroneously held to have inspired the teachings of the Mutazila. The Shi‘a Twelvers also call their Imams ‘the people of Justice and the Unity’ — a title which the Mutazila first used of themselves — and have also adopted the Mutazila doctrine that the Quran is not eternal but was created.
The earlier Shi’a and some Sufis also maintained that new circumstances may bring about an alteration in an earlier divine determination. Allah may ‘change His mind’ (see article ‘Bada’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam). The Mutazila also, objecting to the orthodox doctrine of the divine decree, spoke of free futures and free possibilities in human life.
For a statement on Shi‘a-Mutazila theology see I. Goldziher Vorlesungen ueber den Islam (Heidelberg, 1925), pp. 225 f.
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