Islam on the Problem of Suffering with Dr Abdullah Sueidi (2021-12-28) #

0:00:02 Hello everyone and welcome to Blogging theology. Today I am delighted to talk to 0:00:09 Dr Abdullah Sueidi - you are most welcome Sir! Thank you very much it's very nice to be here. 0:00:17 Now Dr Abdullah Sueidi is a Swedish convert to Islam who holds a PhD in Islamic theology and 0:00:26 is a specialist in topics related to atheism. He has been teaching in al-Masjid an-Nabawi and the 0:00:34 Islamic University in Medinah and has been active in teaching Islam in sweden for over 15 years, 0:00:42 and Dr Abdullah has kindly agreed to give us an Islamic perspective on the problem of suffering. 0:00:49 This is an issue that has come up in recent discussions on Blogging Theology and has 0:00:54 been discussed by mankind since time immemorial anyway so i'm just wondering Dr Abdullah 0:01:00 if you could perhaps tell us a bit about the history of the problem of suffering and evil 0:01:06 and when the theological and philosophical discussions about the subject started. Yes 0:01:14 thank you very much. What is called today the problem of suffering or evil that some people 0:01:21 think is a really a problem I think it's one of the most heated top subjects in 0:01:28 the atheist thesis debate i think there are many reasons for that one of the reasons 0:01:34 is that every human reflecting human being that is like reflecting about his existence and so on 0:01:42 is thinking about the suffering and evil in the world so and i think this is something that 0:01:48 has been around for all of history. It's not only theists it's like every reflecting person 0:01:56 atheist, theist, polytheist, monotheist, anyone are thinking about these issues so I think it's 0:02:03 something from human nature to think about this these existential questions and also 0:02:09 we can see that the problem of evil that they call it the problem of evil it's one of the 0:02:16 most widespread arguments that atheists use against the belief in God. The American professor 0:02:22 of philosophy Michael Tully said that this is the central argument for atheism and also another 0:02:28 professor uh his philosophy Ronald Nash said that arguments appear and disappear about God's 0:02:36 existence or against God's existence but almost all philosophers that he knows believes that the 0:02:42 most serious argument against God's existence is what they call the problem of evil and i think 0:02:49 that one of the reasons of that is that this is something that is close to every single person 0:02:55 that we can feel suffering in ourselves or we can see people around us that suffer or that we can 0:03:02 just switch on television and we can see suffering. So it's something that is really close to people 0:03:07 when it comes to some arguments that atheists use or some things that it is talk about like 0:03:15 say like Lawrence Krauss is speaking about a universe from nothing, talking about quantum 0:03:19 mechanics, and cosmology and so on most people doesn't really understand that these things so 0:03:25 it's kind of a non-issue for people when it comes to the problem of suffering is something that is 0:03:30 close to to all of us and something that people uh really reflect upon so this is a very important 0:03:41 topic to tackle and to speak about and this is something that philosophers and theologians 0:03:48 has been speaking about since way back we can find the this is one of the most 0:03:56 debated top topics today there's a bibliography uh called theodicy and annotated by bibliography 0:04:06 on the problem of evil 1960 to 1990 the author mentions thousands of books and articles about 0:04:15 these issues from theis and atheists when they refute each other and so on so 0:04:20 when some people come and say like they come with this argument and they think it's like 0:04:24 a knock-down argument like this is the first time that they proposed this argument against 0:04:29 the believers and so on it's something that's been debated for thousands of years 0:04:34 the thing of suffering and evil and it's been like hundreds or thousands of articles and 0:04:41 books has been written about this issue so it's not something new 0:04:45 and i think that the defenses against this problem are really really strong and inshallah we will uh 0:04:52 speak about that later today okay inshallah so uh before we get to that can we just clarify what 0:04:59 exactly do atheists and agnostics present as the argument of suffering and evil against the belief 0:05:07 in god what is the argument or the most common substantive argument they present do you think 0:05:12 uh just so we can understand like a bit of the history before that uh like i said philosophers 0:05:19 have been speaking about this issue since way back plato will discuss these issues in his book 0:05:24 the republic and some people today a lot of people today they attribute this problem to 0:05:31 one of the greek philosophers called epicurus but he probably never said that he never spoke 0:05:38 about this problem and it was actually david hume the scottish philosopher in 18th century 0:05:45 that attributed this uh problem to epicurus that was one of the greek philosophers so 0:05:52 uh the issue of speaking about the problem of evil like a problem or an argument against 0:06:00 the belief in god came up in the age of enlightenment and we can see that theologians 0:06:08 spoke about this issue before about suffering and how we can believe in in suffering and so on and 0:06:14 believe in god because justice and so on but it was not like an argument against the existence 0:06:20 of god until the age of enlightenment and it was one french philosopher that wrote
0:06:28 a book called historical and critical dictionary where he mentions this argument and then leibniz 0:06:38 one of the german philosophers responded to the book in his book theodicy and this is the first 0:06:47 time that they mentioned this word theodicy it means like the justice of god theo i see 0:06:54 uh and then david hugh mentioned this argument too but it was actually in the 20th century that 0:07:02 philosophers started to mention this argument as a kind of a logical argument against the 0:07:09 belief in god they in the age of enlightenment they discussed this problem or they took it up 0:07:15 and they spoke about it but it was in the 20th century when john mackie uh australian philosopher 0:07:21 mentioned this problem like in a logical form and this is what is called the logical problem of evil 0:07:30 so he said that it's impossible or it's incoherent to believe in a god that is uh all loving 0:07:40 or omniscient and omnipotent and to believe in suffering he said this is uh it's incoherent you 0:07:47 can't believe in both at the same time wow that's a very strong wrong claim isn't it not just saying 0:07:52 it's a difficulty a challenge you're saying it's logically coherent it's 0:07:56 it's actually not possible a thinking person to have this belief then wow yeah 0:08:01 and this logical problem uh like i will say later on uh it was actually atheist philosophers like 0:08:08 william rowe that refuted him and he said that no it's not incoherent to say that 0:08:13 it's not incoherent to believe in that some sufferings can uh can occur and we believe in a 0:08:20 that you believe in a god that is only pondered omniscient and all loving 0:08:25 he spoke about what is called the evidential problem of evil 0:08:29 immense suffering or surplus suffering or a great immense of specific kind of suffering that he 0:08:37 believes that there is no point of that kind of suffering and this is actually usually what uh 0:08:43 the atheists are speaking about today uh usually uh when we saw the the discussion with dr bart 0:08:50 ehrman and dr brown they were speaking about this issue he was speaking about this issue like 0:08:55 okay what about kids suffering what about this and what about that and i think that uh dr bart ehrman 0:09:04 understands that you can believe in god at the same time that you can believe in some kind of 0:09:09 suffering but they're speaking about specific kinds of suffering and this is what is called 0:09:14 the evidential problem of evil and it was one of the philosophers called william rowe 0:09:22 that mentioned the problem so if we look at the logical problem of evil what we actually say is 0:09:30 if an omnipotent omni benevolent and omniscient god exist then evil does not 0:09:37 just doctor just about a question of language there omnipotence so we're talking about an 0:09:42 all-powerful that means powerful yeah and what was the other word benevolent all good uh all loving
0:09:58 so just to clarify the language there thank you yeah so they they speak about three attributes of 0:10:02 god and that he has power everything and that he is good and at the same time that he knows 0:10:08 everything he said if there is such uh god then evil does not exist you can't have the same at the 0:10:17 you can have both of the at the same time and then he said there is even in the world therefore 0:10:23 an omnipotent of the benevolent and omniscient god does not exist so this is the kind of 0:10:30 logical uh formula for for for the logical problem of of evil and uh this is uh quite strange that 0:10:39 you can say that because the first the first point that is making that it's impossible to believe 0:10:44 in all good and all-powerful and omniscient god and believing in evil at the same time 0:10:51 it's a claim he makes this claim but if you believe that allah or god is hakeem all wise 0:10:58 that he has reasons he has wisdoms for things that he create and something can seem to be bad at the 0:11:05 first time and then good things can come out of them and so on then the whole first sentence 0:11:15 outline it like that having some familiarity with the what the quran says 0:11:19 it does strike me as an odd argument uh without anticipating your point but it's not something is 0:11:24 obviously a problem from from the muslim point of view anyway no no and uh william rowe uh when he 0:11:30 wrote about this issue he said to say that something is incoherent it's you have to have 0:11:37 two statements that go against one each other so you say that elizabeth is taller than five foot 0:11:43 and elizabeth it's not taller than five foot you can't have the same at the same time you either 0:11:49 say that i have a computer in front of me or i don't have a computer in front of me you can't 0:11:53 have this uh both at the same time but he says that you can also say two statements 0:12:00 that might not appear to contradict one another but you have to add a third sentence to make them 0:12:07 incoherent so he said like an example this thing is red and it it's not colored at the same time so 0:12:15 you have to add a third sentence to say everything that is red is also colored and then it becomes uh 0:12:22 incoherent sentence so he says now if you look at the statement that uh mackie is talking about 0:12:33 then uh it's not contradictory because if you add this sentence what he is trying to add here 0:12:41 is to say that if god would exist and he would prevent all of evil but 0:12:49 you can just refute that by saying that god can create things in the world and have different uh 0:12:54 reasons or different kind of wisdoms begging the question isn't it he seems to be there's 0:13:00 an assumption there that's not stated explicitly you're making explicit and saying hang on actually 0:13:07 there may be reasons why god permits your will suffering to exist and therefore there's not a 0:13:12 incoherence or contradictoryness in there yes that's the whole thing and the the funny thing 0:13:17 is that john mc himself in his latest book that he wrote the miracle of theism he actually quoted 0:13:25 and said that the problem of evil does not after all show that the central doctrines 0:13:31 of theism are logically inconsistent with one another so this is the last book that he wrote 0:13:37 and it was published one year after his death and uh like i said william rowan is an atheist 0:13:43 philosopher he refuted that so the logical problem of evil is refuted by the author himself 0:13:50 and by other atheist philosophers so we don't really need to refute that argument and you can 0:13:58 still see that some atheists today they come and say oh we have the logical problem or evil one two 0:14:03 three epicurus said wow and so on but it's not an issue anymore it's it's dead in philosophy 0:14:10 the thing that they are speaking about today is the other kind of problem or evil that's called 0:14:15 the evidential problem of evil and the evidential problem of evil uh is uh it's a bit different it's 0:14:25 the the argument that william rowe proposed and he said that uh he's speaking about intense and 0:14:33 surplus and gracious suffering that he thinks that god could have prevented without thereby losing 0:14:39 some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse so he's pointing at specific things 0:14:47 that he himself does not see to have any kind of we'll call in arabic hikmah any kind of wisdom 0:14:55 so why is this person uh suffering or why is this child suffering and so on and this argument can be 0:15:05 objective or subjective so if someone says this uh it's impossible to believe in god at the same time 0:15:16 then this is kind it's a form of the logical argument that was speaking of before but someone 0:15:20 can say i don't i can't believe in god because of this and that and this is actually what dr 0:15:27 ehrman said jesus he did not speak about uh you can't believe in god this is a knock down 0:15:34 argument against the belief in god he was speaking about his subjective feelings right comes 0:15:41 this argument and actually in his own book that he wrote about the the problem of evil 0:15:48 he said that his wife is a believing christian and she does not think that the problem of evil 0:15:56 is a problem for her faith but he believes that so this is his belief his subjective belief so it's 0:16:06 he can go and say like i can't believe in god like that and i believe i can say 0:16:11 but i can believe in the god like that so it's just a subjective kind of discussion 0:16:15 it's not an objective argument against the belief of god and we can actually see that
0:16:24 yeah just to say that although i see your point it's not a logical rational philosophical argument 0:16:30 nevertheless it has does it not rhetorical force it has horrible power so you you can 0:16:36 emotional it's emotional express his outrage and you can see the way he was um uh responding 0:16:44 to dr brown on this issue he was clearly almost angry he was very agitated and upset 0:16:51 and that was the power of the argument it wasn't intellectual it was emotional um but nevertheless 0:16:58 as human beings that is a powerful reality it's not just a non-intellectual point it's 0:17:04 a powerful reality nonetheless yes and people can have subjective subjective reasons for unbelief 0:17:11 you can have someone that say i can't believe in islam because in islam it's forbidden to drink 0:17:17 alcohol and eat pork and i love whiskey and eat bacon so it's impossible for me to believe in 0:17:22 god if this is so this is a subjective reason for him for not believing in god but you can't really 0:17:29 use it as a down argument against the belief in god and i think that most 0:17:34 people that really speak about the problem eve today they're speaking about it in this way 0:17:40 but they're doing it in some kind of objective way so they're trying to convince others to and 0:17:46 that's why they become a bit like angry with other people when they're speaking about it and so on 0:17:51 but it's really a subjective feeling that people have against uh belief so uh 0:18:01 but we can see that billions of people around the world uh throughout history uh could reconcile 0:18:09 this thing because suffering is not something new and people know that allah azzawajal oh god is
0:18:18 all loving and all the seeing and all-knowing and so on this is not something new so 0:18:24 people throughout the ages were able to reconcile between these things so 0:18:29 when people are speaking about it today they're speaking about okay i can't believe in this thing 0:18:34 but you can see that billions of people around the world can 0:18:38 believe in that so when you speak about like in some debates like when you're speaking to dr uh 0:18:44 dr brown and he's saying like how can you it was like like dr brown is the only one in the world 0:18:50 believing in that it's like no a couple of billions of other people believes in that too so 0:18:57 it's more that you speak about your own emotions about these things about suffering and so on 0:19:01 that people can't really see the wisdoms behind this and that okay well the next question then 0:19:08 inevitably becomes how can a muslim respond to the argument of evil and suffering presented by these 0:19:16 atheists and agnostics um yeah it's very important to to show first that this is not really an 0:19:24 argument against the existence of a creator it's an argument against some of the creators 0:19:35 attributes so if someone said no i can't believe in this and this and that it 0:19:41 doesn't exclude the belief in a in a creator that's the first thing and the second thing is 0:19:47 it's really that they took three of god's attributes and they said no i can't it's 0:19:53 like one plus one plus one i can have i can't believe in these three attributes at the same time 0:19:59 but if you want to speak about this issue you have to understand the whole picture right 0:20:04 understand the whole picture how we really believe in god we don't believe that god only have three 0:20:11 attributes we believe that god have more than three attributes and if you can see the whole 0:20:16 picture and how we look at the whole world and how we look about uh next world and so on then you can 0:20:24 see that just taking this argument uh outside uh it's a bit of a problem and i can say that this 0:20:32 argument that they're using is what is called a no-seem argument and it's to say that if i can't 0:20:40 see this thing then it doesn't exist so what they really say is i myself can't see any real 0:20:47 reason or wisdom behind such and such suffering so because of that there is no wisdom behind it 0:20:57 this is if you break it down this is actually what they say i can't see any wisdom behind the 0:21:03 suffering in this and this and that or this war or this star starvation and so on and because of that 0:21:12 there is no reason or there is no system so using nons no cm arguments uh can be good 0:21:20 sometimes if you don't have eye problems uh you can see and you look at the right place so if 0:21:29 i go to my refrigerator now and i don't have any problem with my eyes and so on and i go and look 0:21:35 there and i don't see any bottle of milk then i can conclude from that there is no bottle of milk 0:21:42 there but if i was not able to see and then i can't use this argument and if i'm looking 0:21:50 at the wrong places i can't see this too so if i would say no i looked at the refrigerator 0:21:57 and i did not see any bottle of milk so there are no bottle of milks in the whole world 0:22:02 no you just look at the refrigerator yeah you can't speak about the whole world you 0:22:06 just look at one place you have to look at all of the things at the same time and i think that 0:22:13 this is actually one of the problems here with the atheists because i think that 0:22:19 first of all they're not able to see and they're not looking at the rate or the right place 0:22:26 and i don't want to offend anyone but when i say that they're not able to see 0:22:31 uh it's because if you don't believe in the creator first you don't believe in the existence 0:22:36 of the creator then of course you will not see the wisdoms of the creator because you don't 0:22:42 believe in his existence you have to believe in his existence first and then you can believe in 0:22:48 his attributes or something of his wisdoms and so on so i think it's really a problem here 0:22:55 that they don't see uh allah azza mentions this in the quran about non-believers when he said
0:23:05 they were not able to hear nor did they sit not see so allah is when he says this it's 0:23:10 not that they were blind they couldn't see things around them but they did not use their 0:23:16 side in the right way so if we look at this issue the signs of the creator are everywhere 0:23:27 all over the place at the same time the atheists say no i don't see any evidence of of the creator 0:23:34 so if they can't see the evidences and all of the signs and all of the things that point to 0:23:40 the creator how can we expect from them that they will see the wisdoms of the creator they miss the 0:23:48 whole point they missed the the thing that is all around them all over the world like we have 0:23:53 i would just mention uh four uh short arguments about uh for the existence of god you have the 0:24:00 fit for the argument it's like allah inside of us uh a natural dispositional inclination to believe 0:24:09 in him so we have it inside of our souls it's actually when philosophers today speak about 0:24:16 humans some of them said that we shouldn't call humans homo sapiens we should call them homo 0:24:21 religious because it's a part of human nature to believe in god and this is actually one of the 0:24:27 famous oxford studies that justin barrett the professor of uh psychology and other professors 0:24:35 made in oxford university and other universities and they concluded from many evidences that belief 0:24:43 in god is part of human nature and this is what we as muslims believe in the future the prophet saws
0:24:51 or every newborn baby is born on fitra we have this thing inside of us so the belief 0:24:57 is actually inside of us we don't you have people that never studied theology never 0:25:04 studied philosophy never studied these rational arguments but they had a very firm belief in god 0:25:11 and i actually think that most people around the world never really studied theology 0:25:15 and never really um studied the philosophical argument but they believe in god and they have 0:25:22 strong faith in god because of what they felt so we have the iman inside of us and then uh 0:25:31 the second argument argument of create creation uh that everything that is creator created needs 0:25:39 a creator and this whole universe and everything inside it is created so and nothing is internal 0:25:46 and this goes back to that it needs a creator so and we can speak about these arguments for 0:25:54 a long while but it's a very compelling argument did you see like something 0:25:59 that started to exist then it needs to have a creator and we can see that everything 0:26:06 in the universe the whole universe itself started to exist so it has to have a creator 0:26:14 and a third argument is the fine tuning argument that the creation like the universe and stars and 0:26:21 planets and so on not only created but they're extremely fine tuned so this is something that 0:26:28 we can reflect upon when we look in the skies and stars in the space allah says
0:26:39 indeed in the creation of heavens and earth and the alternation of the day 0:26:43 and night there are signs for people of reason and if we study science 0:26:49 like astronomy and astrophysics and chemistry and so on we can also see all of these signs 0:26:55 that really point to the extreme fine tuning on micro level and micro level on universal scale 0:27:05 on atomic scale we can find the sign everywhere and this is and i think i just uh dr abdullah 0:27:14 this argument is becoming even more impressive almost with each passing day as science uncovers 0:27:20 and observes as you say at the micro level the very smallest incredible machinery in engineering 0:27:26 we see and also the huge vast macro level the level of the universe and the laws of physics 0:27:31 these disclose extraordinary design and it's not like we're becoming less obvious of that 0:27:37 it's becoming ever more clear so the argument is becoming more and more powerful i think 0:27:42 with each year as science uncovers more and more of the marvels and signs in the universe 0:27:47 yes exactly and the thing is if you don't see that then there is something there's a 0:27:53 problem with your site i don't say that you have a problem with seeing with your eyes but you have 0:27:58 a problem with insight to understand that this all points to a creator and this is the argument 0:28:04 i want to make that if you have problems to see this then of course you will have problems to see 0:28:09 different wisdoms behind this and that of the creator because you don't even believe in 0:28:14 in the creator so uh we can see the fine tuning everywhere in in universe and the 0:28:23 fourth and last argument is the design argument and this is uh more about biology and allah azza 0:28:30 mentions this in the quran many times for us to ponder reflect upon animals like the birds in 0:28:36 the sky and the creation of the camels and human organs like eyes and lips and tongues and so on
0:28:48 will show them our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to 0:28:54 them that it is the truth and the thing that is pretty interesting here that you can even see that 0:29:03 really stubborn uh darwinist atheists like richard dawkins when he's speaking 0:29:09 about biology he said that he says that biology is the study of complicated things 0:29:14 that have the appearance of being designed with a purpose so they can see they can see that 0:29:24 all of these things in biology that they study 0:29:29 appears to be designed uh for a purpose but because of their belief in darwinistic evolution 0:29:39 they say it's an appearance but they can see it all around them and even the nobel prize 0:29:44 winner uh and the discovered dna francis crick said biologists must constantly keep in mind 0:29:52 that what they see was not designed but rather evolved because it's all in front of them they 0:29:59 can see okay this is really the sign no no no wait yes it's evolved it's evolved you know so
0:30:10 but the laws of physics are not evolved darwin has nothing to say about the laws of physics 0:30:15 or the origin of life itself a biogenesis or the existence of consciousness or the big bang the big 0:30:21 bang is not a product of darwinian evolution it is what it is uh even that argument only applies 0:30:27 to a small faction of the universes yeah yeah but the thing is that they can see it in front of them 0:30:33 they can see it in front of them at the same time they say no but yes and so on and uh here's one 0:30:40 interesting thing when it comes to this thing of uh speaking about the wisdoms of god and so on one 0:30:45 of the main arguments that people believing in darwinistic evolution today are using 0:30:50 is what they call human vestigiality or rudimentary organs and when they were 0:30:56 speaking about this issue about 100 years ago they mentioned about 200 different organs that 0:31:03 they said okay this these organs have no purpose there's no wisdom behind them yeah they're just a 0:31:11 byproduct of evolution and so on but when science developed they can say oh no this really actually 0:31:21 has a wisdom oh oh we need it for this and needed for that and we need it for this 0:31:26 and every single one of these rudimentary organs that you are speaking about has different 0:31:31 functions and that might not be the function that scientists first thought that it was but they have 0:31:37 functions and they were actually speaking you can see like one of the main issues they were 0:31:42 speaking about in this century was what is called junk dna richard dawkins he mentions in his book 0:31:49 great show on earth that it was published in 2009 that 95 of dna has no function so it's 0:31:56 junk dna and throughout research just the latest latest years they found out that 80 of this dna 0:32:08 really has functions uh in the the scholars of the encode project 0:32:12 and they say we will really i think that we will find out that hundred percent of dna really have 0:32:20 functions so just in a couple of years to say no there is no wisdom with that there's no 0:32:26 purpose there's no reason and then after a while you can see that there are reasons 0:32:32 for that and there are purposes for that and there are wisdoms for that so we should not be
0:32:40 like jump into things and say no there's no wisdom behind this war now or this conflict now this 0:32:47 starvation you don't really know maybe you will see something after 10 years 20 years 100 years 0:32:53 we don't have the whole picture our knowledge is limited but god's knowledge is encompassing god 0:33:02 knows everything that was and is and will be so we're not really in the position to say that this 0:33:10 and that does have a wisdom or does not have a wisdom so what you're really asking for is yeah 0:33:18 it is some humility on the part of us as human beings as scientists when we encounter things 0:33:23 we don't really understand not just to dismiss it as wastage or rubbish but actually say well 0:33:29 maybe there's a wisdom built into nature and we should expect there to be an explanation one day 0:33:34 and that of course is a sign of its created intelligence by by god of course but i just 0:33:39 want to ask you you mentioned that earlier on the three attributes of god that are kind of 0:33:43 pre-exclusively fastened on in this discussion but there are others particularly in the islamic 0:33:49 tradition in the quran traditionally there are 99 names of allah so what other attributes are there 0:33:55 of god that muslims then um can uh focus on or relate or understand in a muslim response to the 0:34:04 argument of evil and suffering uh as presented by these atheists yeah i think that uh one of the uh 0:34:13 important attributes is like i said al hakeem that everything that allah does has a hikmah a wisdom 0:34:21 and also that allah azza is not only loving and merciful he can also be angry and punish so 0:34:31 some of the things that we can see can really be punishment from allah and it can also 0:34:38 uh allah is a lot leaf so something can happen today and we might not understand the real 0:34:44 reason and then after a long while allah azza will take up they take in front of us 0:34:50 different kind of wisdoms and so on 0:34:53 does that mean in english or yeah it has more than one uh more than one meaning uh in uh yeah 0:35:04 one of the things is that allah is kind to his slaves and also that allah is or they can take out 0:35:10 things after a while it's quite hard to to explain now but it's it's one of the things like if you 0:35:16 look at the uh the story of yusuf alaihissalam uh in the end of the story he said in arabic so uh
0:35:29 the whole story if you look at the story in the beginning and what they did to him and they his 0:35:34 brothers throw in the world and so on and so on and so on then in the end what happened so 0:35:39 if you look at the whole story if you look at the beginning oh this is suffering this is evil 0:35:45 they are his brothers they're throwing him down and well and they're doing this and this and that 0:35:49 but in the end what happened so you have to have the whole kind of story to understand uh 0:35:56 this thing uh yeah so uh i think this is very very important that we uh have to understand 0:36:05 first that our belief is based on evidences and arguments but there's a certain point that we also 0:36:16 have to have faith in allah's hikmah and so we can say no we don't have blind faith in god no 0:36:26 our faith is based on evidences and arguments uh like i mentioned the argument of creation 0:36:33 argument five tuning and so on and we can understand from these arguments too that god have 0:36:39 knowledge and wisdom and so power and so on but then when we understand this thing 0:36:47 some things we have to stop we can say okay i don't really know about the wisdom i don't know 0:36:53 why this person is suffering why this child this specific child is suffering but i believe in god 0:37:01 that he has a wisdom behind that and i think that we have theorists we can mention different reasons 0:37:09 and we can understand some things but i think if we go in to the micro level to try to understand 0:37:17 everything i think this is a trap it's uh to try to understand every single wisdom behind 0:37:23 every single thing it's like if someone is asking muslims okay why are you praying 0:37:30 for are you not playing five uh okay the wisdom behind that is okay but why do you pray mahadev 0:37:37 three raka you're going into a trap you should say no i believe in allah i believe in the wisdom 0:37:43 of allah i believe in the knowledge of allah and i know that there are some wisdoms but 0:37:48 i'm not quite sure maybe about this certain thing and i don't think that a muslim should 0:37:52 be shy about saying this it's advocating is is is humility actually it's a humbleness uh before uh 0:38:02 the unknown of what we don't know but it is known to one who is all wise and uh and so on so you're 0:38:08 advocating humility which is a great virtue as well just generally we don't have to know 0:38:13 everything we're not god god knows everything and a muslim submits to to god but i i'm just i have 0:38:19 to just quite one of my one of the most striking verses in the quran second surah verse 155 you owe 0:38:25 you who believe seek help through steadfastness and prayer for god is with the steadfast do not 0:38:31 say that those who are killed in god's cause are dead they are alive though you do not realize it 0:38:38 we shall certainly test you with fear and hunger and the loss of property lives and crops but 0:38:46 give good news to those who are steadfast those who say when afflicted with calamity we belong to 0:38:52 god and to him we shall return these will be given blessings and mercy from their lord and it is they 0:39:00 who are rightly guided i think that i mean that as a as a summary amazing yeah and also the verse
0:39:11 alone he is not asked about what he does but they would be asked so we should not ask 0:39:19 allah why he does this and that but they should be asked and 0:39:23 the whole discussion on that is made between allah azza and the angels so when they ask him 0:39:28 why he create created human beings and so on they would create mischief on earth and he answered
0:39:37 certainly i know what you do not know so if we have this basis in our religion 0:39:43 and i think uh it's much easier to comprehend with specific things and i think that 0:39:51 one of the reasons that atheists especially in the west that have been grown up in a judo 0:39:58 judeo-christian environment is the whole rhetoric amongst uh christian preachers when they're saying 0:40:06 that god is love god is there always emphasising on uh the love of god and not saying only that god 0:40:14 is loving he is love yeah so if you speak about god in that way it's all god loves you god is 0:40:21 like a heavenly father and you are his sons and he loves everyone he even loves the unbelievers and 0:40:28 so on and then at the same time when you see that people are suffering immense suffering it's hard 0:40:35 to reconcile them so i think it's it's kind of a trap when they are uh speaking that way about god 0:40:43 and then uh the the atheist comes and say okay we can see this and this and that when muslims 0:40:51 speak about god it's more like allahu akbar allah is greater than everything god knows everything
0:41:03 he is not asked what he does and so on so when you have this kind of rhetoric and 0:41:07 when you speak about god in that way i don't think that you really would have these kind of 0:41:12 thoughts of the same way and that's where we can see that what they call today the problem of evil 0:41:21 was not really a problem for muslims this morning i sat down with a brother and he's writing his phd 0:41:29 on uh the problem of evil in islamic theology and he told me that he is going through the literature 0:41:37 the books the old books of the the the self the old scholars and trying to see whether anyone 0:41:46 that really thought that this was a problem and he said i didn't find anyone there was 0:41:52 not a problem for them they were they were speaking about god and they saw sufferings 0:41:57 and evils as a part of this dunya about this life this life is filled up it's a test for us 0:42:05 so of course there will be suffering no one is like okay because of that i can't believe in 0:42:10 god no it was just it's a part of life for them so professor jonathan brown uh said in a recent 0:42:17 video he's a professor of islamic studies in the united states he's actually a muslim uh revert 0:42:24 himself he says there's a very famous book in the west written by a jewish author it's been through 0:42:29 so many additions called why do bad things happen to good people why do bad things happen to good 0:42:35 people and he and this is hugely popular i read it years ago but um but he said in all his travels in 0:42:40 bookshops around the muslim world he's never ever seen this book not even in one translation at all 0:42:46 and he says this perhaps tells us something's going on here you know that this is not such a 0:42:51 central crushing overwhelming existential problem for muslims as it clearly has been 0:42:57 for many judeo-christians in the west yes and you can actually find like in the bible uh some 0:43:05 verses where it's attributed to the prophets like habakkuk and so on when he's speaking to god uh 0:43:13 why have you left me why don't you hear why can't you listen and even when they say jesus is saying
0:43:20 why have you left me and so on and these kind of verses i think that 0:43:25 it makes some people really think about these issues when you speak about god in this way so 0:43:31 i think this is a part of the problem and i think when you have the whole the muslim theology and 0:43:38 also the muslim world view how we look at life we don't look at this life as a hedonistic paradise 0:43:46 that we should only strive for pleasure and this is it's only this life here we see that this life 0:43:54 is created for us as a test and we're here to know our lord and to worship our lord and hardships and 0:44:04 sufferings can really take people closer to allah and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said
0:44:15 the people that was tested most were the prophets and then those who followed them and we can see 0:44:22 that most of the followers of the prophets the former prophets and also the prophet muhammad 0:44:30 were poor people and we can see that poor people suffering people are usually closer to 0:44:37 religion than people that are wealthy and are healthy and so on allah says
0:44:50 no but indeed man transgresses because he sees himself self-sufficient 0:44:57 so when a person sees himself as self-sufficient 0:45:01 i am healthy i have all this and uh i don't suffer then he comes away from allah 0:45:09 abdullah what was that a quote from what you just read in arabic what was that a quote from indiana
0:45:24 but indeed man transgresses because he sees himself self-sufficient so when people 0:45:30 see themselves as self-sufficient yeah they don't have any hardships then they can go away from 0:45:38 allah and also uh from the muslim worldview or how we look at life we believe that it's 0:45:45 not just this life we live in an afterlife too and we believe that allah azzawajal is
0:45:53 he is the judge that will judge people with justice so
0:46:06 for the day of resurrection so no soul will be treated unjustly at all it's no 0:46:14 kind of or oppression on that day 0:46:18 because allah azzawajal will give every single soul what they deserve and allah also says
0:46:29 that on the day of judgment it will be judged between them in truth and it will be said all 0:46:36 praise to allah lord of all words so every single person on the day of judgement the believer and 0:46:43 the non-believer will say alhamdulillah this is justice this every single soul will understand 0:46:52 why this and that happened so uh when we see this and we can see that there will be justice 0:47:02 and some people are suffering today but and some people are oppressing others and so on but in the 0:47:08 next life allah azzawajal will uh judge between his uh slaves and yeah but that's important 0:47:17 in the west uh and even actually if i'm to be brutally honest in many many christian churches 0:47:23 this sense of the afterlife the next life the day of judgment where justice will be done is is 0:47:28 pretty uh much missing and um i i've i've sat when i was a christian i've sat through sermons which 0:47:35 are holy concerned with the dunya where there's no reference no awareness at all 0:47:39 of the akira and that was normal and that was within a christian worshiping context and of 0:47:45 course you know it's there you say they're in the the gospels that we have even in the new testament 0:47:49 strong emphasis on the life to come as there is in the quran and the the sinner of course yeah and 0:47:57 like we believe that god will judge people with justice and we also believe that people will be 0:48:04 rewarded when they suffer in this life there's a incredible hadith that the prophet saws
0:48:16 s
0:48:20 on the day of resurrection when people who have suffered affliction are given 0:48:24 their reward those who are healthy will wish their skins have been cut pieces with scissors 0:48:31 when they were in the world so people on the day of judgement that were healthy will wish to be 0:48:40 like the people that were suffering because they can see that they would have an enormous reward 0:48:47 so when you look at this hadith especially if you're suffering now if you have a disease or 0:48:52 you some one of your kids died or your parents died and so on and you can see that okay in this 0:49:01 life it's hard but in the next life it will be an incredible reward and also the prophet saw 0:49:07 mentioned that uh it's a reason that people get rid of their sins so the prophet saw saddam said
0:49:24 continues to remain on the trial in respect of his life property and offspring until he faces allah 0:49:31 the exalted with no sin record so when you are suffering you have problems you have problems with 0:49:39 your wealth with your family and with yourself with your health and so on every single thing 0:49:47 that happens allah azza will take away sins from us but we have to have patience with these things
0:50:07 the magnitude of the reward goes along with the magnitude of the affliction when god 0:50:12 who is great and glorious loves people he afflicts them and those who accept it 0:50:18 gladly receive god's good pleasure but those who are displeased receive god's expression 0:50:25 so being tested with suffering if we have patience and we
0:50:33 accept these things from god then
0:50:37 allah will reward us and he will be pleased with us and i know that some atheists say here 0:50:46 okay but this this is for grown-ups what about all kids kids are suffering too muslim kids and 0:50:55 non-muslim kids and so on firstly 0:50:59 many of the scholars says that even non the kids of non-muslims they will go to paradise too 0:51:06 so when like dr barb ehrman is speaking about what about all of the non-muslim kids that are 0:51:11 dying of starvation and so on uh inshallah they will also go to to paradise and if you compare 0:51:19 the suffering that some of the kids are going through it's it's intense suffering of course but 0:51:25 it might be for a year or two years or three years but if they go to paradise and that's for eternity 0:51:32 it's no comparison so if you look at the whole picture you look at this life this short life you 0:51:39 look at the next life that is so much greater and eternal then uh then you can't really
0:52:09 and then that person from amongst the persons of the world 0:52:14 that would be brought who had led the most miserable life in the world from amongst the 0:52:20 inmates of paradise and he will be dipped in the paradise and it will be said to him oh son of adam 0:52:27 did you face any hardship or had any distress fallen to you a lot and he would say by allah 0:52:35 no oh my lord never did i face any hardship or experience any with stress so people that are 0:52:43 amazing this amazing hadith amazing idea it's amazing and especially this hadith gives us hope 0:52:52 and gives people with suffering hope okay i have a chronic disease now i might never get rid of this 0:53:00 disease in this life and i might i will never see my dead parents one more uh in time in this 0:53:06 life but the reward in the next life just one dip in paradise and you'll forget about everything so
0:53:16 it's incredible it's incredible
0:53:22 another objection that some of the atheists mentioned is like 0:53:25 okay what about all of these people that never heard about islam they never heard 0:53:28 about the prophet saw solomon they are suffering in this life can they go to paradise and so on um
0:53:39 we will never punish anyone except that we have sent a messenger 0:53:43 or the message so if a person does not hear about islam does not hear about 0:53:49 the message or that he hears about islam in a wrong way
0:53:57 yeah yeah islam is a terrorist religion stay away from that he never heard about what really islam 0:54:04 is then no we don't say that he will be punished in in the next life so if you look at that you 0:54:10 can see a lot of people they might be suffering they never heard about islam but in the end it 0:54:15 might be that they will go to to paradise too so if we could see that in this big picture i think 0:54:23 it helps us a lot at the same time i think it's very important to say that when we are speaking 0:54:29 about this thing now we're speaking about it in a theological way that does not mean that we should 0:54:36 not strive to help people that are suffering so we say okay it's just something it's no problem 0:54:43 no we should really strive we as muslims we should believe in god that this is from a 0:54:48 hikmaiah wisdom of allah and at the same time we should strive to help people in need one 0:54:55 of the five pillars of islam is giving zakat and giving zakat if you look at the different persons 0:55:01 you can give zakat too it's actually many of them are people that have problems suffering starvation 0:55:09 their poor and so on and with our zakat we should help them it's there are many verses 0:55:16 in the quran about sadhaka too and helping people are needy and relieving them from from 0:55:24 hardships and so on yeah and we can actually see that muslims are excelling in this issue i i read 0:55:30 an article in huffington post uh and according to a poll uh there they say that muslims in britain 0:55:38 are those who give most charity yeah and actually atheists are those who give the smallest amount of
0:55:47 i read charities the front page of the times it said um you know of all of all the groups 0:55:51 religious groups social groups in the united kingdom muslims 0:55:55 are by far the most generous in charity and giving to others and giving to the poor and so on and 0:56:00 yep it's it's a fact yeah i i think it's very interesting here because 0:56:05 first of all muslims throughout history did not really have problems with the 0:56:09 what is called the problem of evil and at the same time they don't have problem to reconcile between 0:56:13 it and to help people that are suffering by giving charity and so on so it's a very balanced view 0:56:20 on theology and how to act in life and how to to to help people at the same time that are suffering 0:56:29 no it's good you know if if you pause that um turn the tables a bit now um because i think 0:56:37 there's a real problem here and the problem isn't what you've said it's can suffering and evil pose 0:56:43 a problem to the atheist as well because i think this is the real problem the problem is for the 0:56:49 atheist can you perhaps explain why it's a problem the problem of evil and suffering i think so too 0:56:56 and and i think it's very important to turn the table when we're speaking about this issue too 0:57:00 uh because thinking about suffering like i said uh i think it's something that all people all around 0:57:06 the world throughout history have been thinking about uh theists polytheists monotheists theists 0:57:13 people are thinking about suffering suffering is a part of of this world so but i really think that 0:57:19 it's a big problem for for the atheists from for three specific reasons the first thing 0:57:26 is when you speak about the problem of evil uh you're actually speaking about an objective 0:57:35 uh standard for what is good and bad and evil and not even and i will speak about that yeah 0:57:42 the second thing is that when people are suffering uh it's really something that goes through their 0:57:50 nervous system that you can feel pain is something that goes through your nervous system and the 0:57:57 nervous system is incredibly designed and it really points to uh the cy nerve so it's really an 0:58:05 evidence for for god's existence and the the last thing is how to cope with uh suffering and evil 0:58:13 in the world as an atheist so let us speak about the first thing when we speak about the problem 0:58:20 of evil let's say because this is interrupted i've seen stephen fry he's a very famous british 0:58:27 comedian and and so on he's an atheist he says he's an atheist and he was going on about how evil 0:58:35 suffering was he used the word evil repeatedly and um many people found this very very ironic 0:58:42 and contradictory um just this is a real problem so real atheists are really saying it's evil and 0:58:48 you can see stephen fry going on and on about this on youtube so why is that a problem for atheism 0:58:56 i think that most uh most general atheists they have a sense inside of themselves it's a part of 0:59:04 the futura the natural instinct that there are some objective moral goods and evils that they 0:59:13 think that this and this and that are objectively good it's not just my opinion and the opinion in 0:59:19 my culture this is good to help children that are starving it is a good thing to do it's not just my 0:59:27 opinion that it's good it's a good thing to do and holocaust and so on they are evil things it's not 0:59:34 just my opinion that it's evil it's evil but if you're an atheist you don't you can't have these 0:59:41 objective moral standards because everything just goes down to uh to personal beliefs or feelings 0:59:50 and we can see that atheists that really take the atheism to this extent like you can see alexander 0:59:58 rosenberg he's a professor of philosophy as a book that is called atheist guide to reality 1:00:03 and when he speaks about these issues he said there are no such thing as good bad 1:00:10 evil and so on it's just you should do good things because it makes you feel good 1:00:15 but there are no objective moral standards for good and evil in ethics atheistic worldview 1:00:23 you can even see like i don't know if you read the books of noah harari sapiens and homo deals uh 1:00:31 they're quite interesting books when he's speaking about these things because he's a 1:00:35 real darwinistic atheist and he takes all of these things to uh it's he's a real nihilist so when he 1:00:44 speaking about human rights he said there is no such thing as human rights because human 1:00:49 rights are based on the belief that uh humans are created equal from a creator this is the 1:00:57 declaration of the independence of the united states people are not created in 1:01:01 his view they are have evolved evolved and they are not equal they are different people 1:01:07 are different so how can you speak about human rights this is a metaphysical concept it's like 1:01:12 we don't have any rights we're animals we're evolved animals so when atheists usually speak 1:01:19 about these things i think they kind of go back to their fitrah their natural instinct that they 1:01:26 are some objective moral good and evil using religious language yeah they're illegitimately 1:01:34 borrowing some religious language of good and evil as metaphysical objective concepts 1:01:39 whereas in fact truly as their own philosophers have said there is no good or evil for atheists so 1:01:45 actually it's it's a bit of a um a tricky argument because they're borrowing religious language and 1:01:50 saying oh but we're not we don't believe in religion they can't really do that consistently 1:01:55 yeah and the the second thing is the nervous system why do people suffer why do we feel pain 1:02:01 when i do like this because i have a nervous system if i would not have a nervous system 1:02:06 i will not feel pain when i do this and this and that and i'm not a doctor so i can't speak about 1:02:13 how the whole nervous system is built up and so on but you can just go into youtube and write 1:02:18 human nervous system you can when you see these things it's just allahu akbar like subhanallah 1:02:28 how just in a microsecond when you do like this you can feel straight away in a microsecond 1:02:34 pain and if we would not feel pain uh we could lose our legs so we don't know which 1:02:39 is that someone cuts off our legs and we don't know what's happening with us so 1:02:43 it's really a signal for us that there's something wrong here there's something wrong in your body 1:02:49 here you can feel pain here okay you should go to the doctor you should look it up and so on 1:02:54 and this is pure design and the sign points to a designer so the whole thing the whole concept 1:03:01 of suffering goes back to an incredibly desired nervous system and the third thing that i think 1:03:10 it does not really disprove atheism but it's if you really think about the atheist worldview 1:03:20 and you can see that they are suffering or people around them are suffering 1:03:24 how can they find like uh consolidation or how can they find some kind of comfort 1:03:31 i used to have a neighbor in sweden who was an atheist on a countryside when he was feeling pain 1:03:38 he was old and he had chronical pains or something like that and he used to find comfort in saying 1:03:47 well it will all go away in the crematorium when i die and will cover that all of my pains will go 1:03:53 away this was his way to find the hope that he will lose pain and he's yeah in his worldview 1:04:02 it's right how can he find something if we look at the hadith that i mentioned the ayat of allah 1:04:12 and you suffer you can really feel like okay okay i can take this because it will take 1:04:20 away my sins and i'll have a reward in the next life and so on and so on so you can feel comfort 1:04:27 that god will reward us for all of these things but as an atheist what if you have chronic 1:04:34 you feel chronic pain chronic diseases suffering the only thing that would take it away 1:04:41 is death and it's like okay after death what's there it's nothing so i think that 1:04:49 this is really it's really depressing if you really think about what atheism means it's 1:04:57 depressing because okay you strive today you study and you work you gain money and you gain fame 1:05:04 and at the moment that you die everything inc in accordance to your worldview finish nothing there 1:05:16 and how can you you can see that people are suffering people oppressing others you could see 1:05:21 that hitler he took over like almost the whole of europe he killed people by the millions and 1:05:28 when the russians came close killed himself and he's finished we as muslims believe that 1:05:34 he will be responsible allah azzawajal will have him responsible for his deeds and his actions 1:05:41 at the same time all of these people that died and so on and people that die in wars and so on 1:05:49 uh allah azza will make justice in the next life so when you believe 1:05:54 in that it really gives you comfort and it makes you cope with the hard 1:05:59 hardships of life and the sufferings of life but i can't really see how an atheist can feel that 1:06:06 it's very hard for me so i think that the problem of suffering is really a problem for the atheist 1:06:14 yeah and yeah this is the great great irony actually that this problem actually uh rebounds 1:06:20 back on them with incredible force uh for the three reasons uh that you mentioned they 1:06:25 can't complain about evil evil doesn't exist for them and then and they're and they're 1:06:30 exquisitely designed nervous system but as best testimony to a designer anyway and anyway atheism 1:06:37 is his hopeless nihilistic literally god forsaken ideology which offers no consolation or hope to 1:06:44 humanity so it really uh rebounds back on atheism uh very painfully for them i think 1:06:51 um um just i i know you your phd uh your uh uh was focused very much on these kinds of subjects well 1:07:00 will that will that work be available to the general public to ask to look at at some point 1:07:06 yeah inshallah i will print the book it's in arabic so i'll print it first i hope 1:07:13 maybe in maybe two or three months or something like that i gave it the
1:07:19 publisher and they will publish it i don't know exactly when but 1:07:22 inshallah close and then the whole issue is to translate it to english because
1:07:33 maybe like articles or some things from the book because i i think it clearly 1:07:40 you have an amazing and profound uh grasp of the uh the issues and uh i will be very keen even if 1:07:48 it's just particular chapters of the book if that could be done in english uh just to share with 1:07:54 us although of course a lot of this is already in the quran it's in the hadith but but uh you know 1:07:59 with the reference to particular contemporary uh uh advocates of atheism like richard dawkins 1:08:05 and others it's useful perhaps because i know you mentioned them to uh read about 1:08:09 in your work as well yeah and it's like what i spoke about today is just like it's about one hour 1:08:16 uh i wrote about 50 pages in my book and like i said as like thousands of books and articles 1:08:22 on this issue so you can in one hour you can speak about everything you can speak about some things 1:08:27 but of course you can speak about all of these things in more depth and so on uh you can have 1:08:33 lectures upon that and books and so on but this is i can say like the conclusion is that uh the 1:08:43 so-called problem of evil is not a problem for a muslim it's not a problem for a muslim it's really 1:08:48 a problem for the atheists and i think it's a bit of a problem too for other religions you know when 1:08:56 they have a certain rhetoric forex and so on but it's not a problem for the muslim and and 1:09:02 i think that's one of the reasons that we don't really see that this uh argument was widespread 1:09:08 in the muslim world no no that's fascinating so i meant to ask are there are there any books in 1:09:14 english at the moment that you would recommend for muslims to refer to until until your work 1:09:20 is published in english um are there any books that you'd recommend at all that we can look at
1:09:27 uh i don't really if i want to recommend a book for all people i would say like i would recommend 1:09:35 a muslim book what i think because some of the books that i read for my uh for my uh
1:09:43 thesis is christian books and usually they try to explain the whole thing with 1:09:49 a lot of uh like a christian input so they're trying to uh evangelize at the same time 1:09:56 so maybe i can write something in the comment uh i don't really think about anything now yeah a 1:10:02 lot of books in arabic it's much easier in arabic but i i will think about it might write a comment 1:10:07 or something like that thank you yes in arabic and certainly and in english as well just just uh um 1:10:15 in case people wanted to develop this further well um well thank you very much indeed dr abdullah 1:10:21 sweetie um an outstanding um if i may say so uh presentation contribution to this and uh i 1:10:28 know i was certainly uh look back to this video in the future for uh further clarification so 1:10:34 uh thank you so much and um are you in you and medina at the moment is that right yes
1:10:42 and i'm very glad to be here i was it was very very interesting i i 1:10:46 follow your channel and i look to i watch many of your videos it's a very interesting channel and 1:10:53 may allah reward you and keep on struggling 18 inshallah inshallah all right well thank 1:11:00 you very much and uh until next time dr abdullah sweetie thank you take care very nice