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Explaining Quran

Response to the Contradiction in the Qur’An Regarding the Source of Good and Bad

4 min read 693 words

Some delusional people claim that there is a contradiction between the words of Allah the Almighty: “And if good befalls them, they say, ‘This is from Allah,’ and if evil befalls them, they say, ‘This is from you.’ Say, ‘All is from Allah.’” (An-Nisa’: 78), and the words of Allah the Almighty: “Whatever good befalls you is from Allah, and whatever evil befalls you is from yourself. And We have sent you to mankind as a messenger, and sufficient is Allah as a witness (79)” (An-Nisa’). They ask: How does the Qur’an state in the first place that the source of good and evil is Allah the Almighty, and in the second place it states that evil is from humans? They aim behind that to attack the Qur’an and claim that it is contradictory.

The Way to Refute the Doubt

The meaning of good and evil in the two verses is different; since:

  • What is meant by good and evil in the first place is blessings and calamities.
  • What is meant by good and evil in the second place is obedience and disobedience, or victory and defeat.

Detail

The meaning of good and bad in the two verses is different, as:

  1. What is meant by good and bad in the first place is blessings and calamities:
    What is meant by good in the first place is fertility and prosperity, and by bad is hardship and diseases. They used to say in such a case: It is the ill omen of Muhammad - may God bless him and grant him peace - to turn the common people away from following him. God responded to their statement by saying, the Almighty: “And if good befalls them, they say, ‘This is from God.’ But if evil befalls them, they say, ‘This is from you.’ Say, ‘All is from God.’” (An-Nisa’: 78), meaning: blessings are from God, and also hardship and calamities are from God[1].
  2. What is meant by good and bad in the second place is obedience and disobedience, or victory and defeat:
    What is meant by good in the second place is what Allah opened for the Prophet - may Allah bless him and grant him peace - on the day of Badr, and whatever booty and conquest he acquired was from Allah, and whatever befell him on the day of Uhud, that his face was wounded, and his front tooth was broken, and whatever was a calamity was because of your sin, meaning: because of the sins of mankind.

Judge Abdul-Jabbar comments on the second verse, saying: What is meant by that is what a person does of obedience and disobedience, and if what we mentioned were not correct, the statement would be contradictory, and the Arabs would have said to the Messenger of Allah - may Allah bless him and grant him peace: You claim in the Qur’an that if it was from other than Allah, they would have found in it much discrepancy, and we have found that, and they deviated from this statement because what is meant by the first - meaning the first verse - is calamities and diseases, and by the second - meaning the second verse - is sins, so he attributed them to the human being himself[2].

Conclusion

There is no contradiction between the two verses. The good in the first verse is blessings and prosperity, and the bad is hardship and calamities, and all of this is from Allah. As for the good in the other place, it is obedience or victory, and this is from Allah - Glory be to Him - and the bad is disobedience or defeat, and this is from humans; since by their disobedience they bring defeat upon themselves, and this statement invalidates this claim.

[1] The Purification of the Qur’an from Objections, Judge Abdul Jabbar, edited by: Dr. Ahmed Abdul Rahim Al-Sayeh, Counselor Tawfiq Ali Wahba, Al-Nafiza Library, Cairo, 1st ed., 2006 AD, p. 123.

[2] The Purification of the Qur’an from Objections, Judge Abdul Jabbar, edited by: Dr. Ahmed Abdul Rahim Al-Sayeh, Counselor Tawfiq Ali Wahba, Al-Nafiza Library, Cairo, 1st ed., 2006 AD, p. 123.