Surah 4:78-79 – Wherever you may be, death will overtake you, even if you should be within towers of lofty construction. But if good comes to them, they say, “This is from Allah ” and if evil befalls them, they say, “This is from you.” Say, “All are from Allah.” So, what is with those people that they can hardly understand any statement? S4:79 What comes to you of good is from Allah, but what comes to you of evil, is from yourself. And We have sent you, (O Muhammad), to the people as a messenger, and sufficient is Allah as Witness.
The contradiction is seen when a Christians or Jews is reading the above verses as they believed God created everything including evil –
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Isaiah 45:7 – I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
1 Samuel 18:10 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand.
They claimed that in S4:78 all things are from Allah but immediately in the next verse according to S4:79 “Whatever good happen to thee is from Allah; but whatever evil happens to thee is from thyself.” Evil things are without doubt a subset of “all things”, and if “all things are from Allah” then the evil things are from Allah as well, and the author of the Qur’an cannot pass the guilt on and blame others as done in S4:79.
It is interesting that Muhammad would contradict himself within two consecutive verses and then write three verses later that discrepancy is a sign that it is not from God as stated in –
S4:82 Do they not consider the Qur’an with care? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found therein much discrepancy.
They further criticised that this topic that evil is from you is distorted with the fact that evil comes also from Satan –
S38:41 Commemorate Our Servant Job, behold he cried out to his Lord: “Satan has afflicted me with distress and suffering!”
Now we have a third party joining the contest for responsibility. Is evil from ourselves? Is it from Satan? Or is it from Allah? Any two of them contradict each other, but in particular do the first two (Surah 4:79, Surah 38:41) contradict the third (Surah 4:78) as Allah claimed all things as from himself.
After reading the above claimed, believers should rejoiced that the Words of Allah proved true for the disbelievers “they failed to understand a single fact!” as confirmed by the verses which say in S4:78 Say: “All things are from Allah.” But what hath come to these people that they fail to understand a single fact? S4:79 Whatever good happens to thee, is from Allah; but whatever evil happens to thee, is from thy (own) soul.
The principle belief in the teaching of the Quran is there is no evil is created by Allah, He only create good. Originally everything is good but it was made evil by His creatures out of their own freewill.
All that is good is from Allah as stated –
S3:26 “…..In Thy hand is all good. Verily, over all things Thou hast power.”
S16:30 To the righteous when it is said, “What is it that your Lord has revealed?” They say, “All that is good.” To those who do good there is good in this world and the Home of the Hereafter is even better and excellent indeed is the Home of the righteous.
The evil that is in this world is not from Allah. The Devil Iblis of the Jinn became evil out of his own doing and also mankind whose soul prone himself to evil. The example of Iblis became the Devil was because he was arrogant when he disobeyed Allah’s command to prostrate to Adam and declared to divert man away from Allah guidance as depicted in these verses –
S17:61-63 Behold! We said to the angels: “Bow down unto Adam”: They bowed down except Iblis: He said, “Shall I bow down to one whom Thou didst create from clay?” He said: “See Thou? This is the one whom Thou hast honored above me! If Thou wilt but respite me to the Day of Judgment, I will surely bring his descendants under my sway all but a few!” (Allah) said: “Go thy way; if any of them follow thee, verily hell will be the recompense of you all an ample recompense.
There are also other examples to explain that evil do not come from Allah but of man out of his own soul as in the case of a man called Samiri who crafted the golden calf for the Jews –
S20:95-96 (Moses) said: “What then is thy case, O Samiri?” He replied: “I saw what they saw not: so, I took a handful of dust from the footprint of the Messenger, and threw it (into the calf): thus, did my soul suggest to me.”
In the case of one of sons of Adam killing his own brother was not inspired by Allah but from his own soul that induced him to commit the crime.
S5:30 The (selfish) soul of the other led him to the murder of his brother: he murdered him, and became himself one of the lost ones.
Thus in the example that was given of Job at S38:41 evil was still do not originated from Allah to either Job or the Devil but the doing of the Devil himself on the servant Job and has nothing to do with Allah.
There is freewill as Allah created only good and whoever turned the good into evil is his own choice whether he is of mankind or of the Jinn.
S18:50 And when We said to the angels, “Prostrate to Adam,” and they prostrated, except for Iblis. He was of the jinn and departed from the command of his Lord. Then will you take him and his descendants as allies other than Me while they are enemies to you? Wretched it is for the wrongdoers as an exchange.
Therefore there is no contradiction in the Quran as no evil originate from Allah as everything comes from Him are only good. The issue of evil originated from other than Him from the dark whispering of man’s own soul or from the devil when they manifested the intention of their hearts into evil actions.
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Pondering with Saifuddin's index 