Edit: I saw a similar post earlier but couldn't reply due to the word count.
I had the same question and doubt plaguing me before I came to accept Islam in my heart. On my quest for the perfect answer, I stumbled upon few quotes and lectures that helped me greatly and convinced me of some of the truths regarding this topic. So, in order to benefit my brothers and sisters, I shall do my best to post them here. And who knows it might turn out to be the last push someone required to accept the Deen.
Ps: I'm quite lazy so the copy and paste answers might seem a bit out of context/order; but the important lesson of why pain, suffering and evil exist and why God allows that to happen is there if someone bothers to read until the end and ponder upon the logic. If another brother or sister wishes to organize and edit the answers in a more coherent way they are more than welcome to do that. Encouraged even.
Answers:
- The purpose of life in Islam, as far as my understanding goes, is composed of two portions; to eludicate differently, the purpose of life is a coin with two sides: From our side it is to worship God i.e obey Him in order to grow nearer to Him and develop our relationship with Him (51:56: And I did not create the Jinn and mankind except to worship Me). In return, we experience God's love, mercy, kindness and care; which is why He created us in the first place i.e the other side of the coin (11:119: ...Except him on whom your Lord has bestowed His Mercy and for that did He create them...).
This purpose of life, however, comes with an important cavieat: To make an analogy, just as a pet fish cannot experience its owner's love and care towards it at the same level a dog can, because of the fish limited intellect; and just as a dog cannot experience its owner's love and care towards it at the same level a child does toward his parent- because the dog cannot relate to the owner at the same level- thus we cannot fully experience God's love and care unless we struggle and strive to relate to God. Both intellectually and emotionally. But how can we relate to God while He is perfect, immortal, transcendent and unlimited while we are imperfect, limited, mortal three dimensional beings? The answer is by developing the seed He put inside us, developing His divine attributes of perfection which He put a limited version of inside our souls: Mercy, love, truthfulness, genorosity, compassion, creativity, forgivness, patience, strength, kindness...etc. By developing these attributes we will grow nearer and relate to their infinite source, God. And the more we relate to God, the more we purify and evolve our souls (from a pet fish to a dog to a child according to the anology), and the more we evolve our soul the more we can experience His side of the purpose of life.
But in order to grow these attributes there are three necessary ingredients that are absoloutly indispensable: INTELLECT, FREE WILL, SUFFERING. Here is an example to elucidate the point above: in order to relate, develop the relationship with, and grow nearer to God The Most Generous, I need to develop the attribute of generosity that God put inside my soul; and in order to develop that attribute there needs to be SUFFERING in the form of poverty, because without need and poverty there is no generosity; and I most do the act of generosity out of my own FREE WILL or else its not generosity anymore but extortion: And I need INTELLECT to comprehend the suffering which poverty inflicts upon the people around me then I need intellect again to comprehend that my act of generosity might put me under the same suffering and then despite that if I act generously THEN I WILL BY THE VIRTUE OF THAT STRUGGLE AND STRIVE (JIHAD) GROW NEARER TO THE INFINITE SOURCE OF GENEROSITY, GOD. And so on with God The Compassionate, God The Forgiving, God the Just, God the Loving, God The Patient... etc. That is the purpose of life: it starts by experiencing these attributes from their infinite source God and becoming aware of them i.e you reflect on your life and you realize how kind, merciful, loving and generous God has been to you; and then out of appreciation and gratitude you reflect these attributes to God's creation (i.e you forgive people, you love people, you become generous toward people and so on) and by reflecting them you grow the ability to perceive a greater magnitude of these attributes that are present in your life from God their infinite source (it's not a give and take prosperity bible relationship. The gifts are already present, in fact you cannot count the blessing of your Lord as the Quran said but your heart and mind will gain a greater insight and awareness of the manifestation of His generosity in your life) which results in you becoming more generous out of gratitude by reflecting that generosity (or any of the other attributes) again to His creation until by the virtue of that repeated loop of process you grow so much nearer to God, because you experienced His attributes and became aware of their manifestation in your life on a far far greater level than the average person. You graduate from being a fish that cannot comprehend its owner care to a level far above the angels. And that emotional nearness in this life will translate to physical nearness in the next life after your death.
Though, another point that someone might ask is: why doesn't God initially program us with those attributes in their perfect form? Why the long journey which might not even succeed? The answer to that question is that a computer programmed to be correct all the time does not mean that it's a truthful computer nor is a machine which helps the sick a compassionate machine, neither is an ATM that gives money to the poor a generous ATM and so on.
- The heart (Quran 24:35) is the mirror that receives, perceives and transmits the divine attributes mentioned above; and sin is the rust that covers the heart to the point where the light is unable to even reach it, i.e the person won't be able to feel the manifistation of God's beautiful attributes in his life neither would he feel the urge to reflect them to His creation (83:14:But no! In fact, their hearts have been stained by all ˹the evil˺ they used to commit) and that's when the heart becomes a locked sealed heart... A heart that doesn't recognize the manifestation of God's attributes around it and lacks, on top of that, the capability to treat others with a miniscule fraction of these attributes. The heart looses empathy on one side and insight on the other side. A black heart! Inner piece with God is the thermometer which measures the level of rust in one's heart just like prayer is the thermometer that measures one's faith... Good deeds especially crying in worship or repentance is the water which most effectively cleans that rust.
- Listen carefully to a wisdom that should be written with a golden ink: Life is a series of sufferings, a series of hard difficult trials; and only by growing mentally and spiritually can a person not be bothered emotionally by that suffering... The only way to grow mentally and spiritually is to go through, face and experience the suffering head on in all its glory. The same concept applies to almost every problem in life, if you want to solve it and let it not bother you emotionally for the rest of your life then you have to struggle through it! Not around it, not above it, but through it.
As an enlightened person said before: "What makes life difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending upon their nature, evoke in us frustration or grief or sadness or loneliness or guilt or regret or anger or fear or anxiety or anguish or despair. These are uncomfortable feelings, often very uncomfortable, often as painful as any kind of physical pain, sometimes equaling the very worst kind of physical pain. It is because of the pain that events or conflicts engender in us all that we call them problems. And since life poses an endless series of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy. Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, THEY CREATE our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. When we desire to encourage the growth of the human spirit, we challenge and encourage the human capacity to solve problems, just as in school we deliberately set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct." It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems. Most of us are not so wise. Fearing the pain involved, almost all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, attempt to avoid problems. We procrastinate, hoping that they will go away. We ignore them, forget them, pretend they do not exist. We even take drugs to assist us in ignoring them, so that by deadening ourselves to the pain we can forget the problems that cause the pain. We attempt to skirt around problems rather than meet them head on. We attempt to get out of them rather than suffer through them. This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are rather mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, lacking complete mental health. Some of us will go to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid our problems and the suffering they cause, proceeding far afield from all that is clearly good and sensible in order to try to find an easy way out, building the most elaborate fantasies in which to live, sometimes to the total exclusion of reality. In the succinctly elegant words of Carl Jung, "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering." But the substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid. The neurosis itself becomes the biggest problem. True to form, many will then attempt to avoid this pain and this problem in turn, building layer upon layer of neurosis. Fortunately, however, some possess the courage to face their neuroses and begin usually to learn how to experience legitimate suffering. In any case, when we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also AVOID THE GROWTH that problems demand from us. It is for this reason that in chronic mental illness we stop growing, we become stuck. And without healing, the human spirit begins to shrivel. Therefore let us inculcate in ourselves the means of achieving mental and spiritual health. By this I mean LET US TEACH OURSELF THE NECESSITY FOR SUFFERING and the value thereof, the need to face problems directly and to experience the pain involved. I have stated that discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. and this tool is the technique of suffering by which we experience the pain of problems in such a way as to work them through and solve them."
"ولهذا كان أشد الناس بلاء الانبياء ثم الامثل فالامثل"
Al-Tirmidhi (2398) narrated that Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: “O Messenger of Allaah, which of the people are most sorely tested?” He said: “The Prophets, then the next best and the next best. A man will be tested in accordance with his level of religious commitment. If his religious commitment is strong, he will be tested more severely, and if his religious commitment is weak, he will be tested in accordance with his religious commitment. Calamity will keep befalling a person until he walks on the earth with no sin upon him"
- Somebody might ask: How could there be a God when all this suffering and evil exist? How can a merciful God allow all this to go on?
The answer to that is, well, firstly, which kind of suffering are you talking about? Because, from a religious point of view, there are two kinds of suffering: Suffering that comes from natural phenomena like death, famine, tsunamis, earthquakes; and suffering that comes from harmful human actions or/and evil acts which they delibertly do against each other like murder, theft, rape and so on. So which kind of suffering are you talking about? If you are asking why God allows the second kind of suffering the answer would be: What do you expect God to do? Should He hit every murderer with a lightning bolt just before he commits his crime? Next you would be asking why rapists exit, and if God hit them with a bolt too, then the question would move to the most evil category next, maybe thieves then liars and on and on it goes until nothing is left of humanity except robots who have to walk a very narrow line lest they be hitten with a bolt from the heavens... In other words, to say it in a simpler way, suffering and evil go hand in hand with free will; they are a package deal, you cannot get one without other.
If you are asking about the first kind of suffering, the natural one; then the answer is even more simple. First of all, you need to comprehend and aknowledge that death is not a horrible thing in it of itself, speaking from the bigger point of view; rather death is infact a blessing from God. You just have to imagine a world without death and all the ramifications starting from overpopulation and ending with an immortal Hitler to realize that death is a blessing. If you have to describe death then you should describe it as a train that transport the person from one place to another. So the next time someone asks why God allows children to die in horrible disasters they should be told that children rather be in God's company than yours. And as far as Muslims are concerned, they have it easier by not worrying about Hell and judgment due to leaving this world with a clean slate. The ones who are truly suffering are not the children but the parents and those left behind, so that question is just an emotional fallacy.
But instead of children death let's talk about the natural suffering as a whole, like famine that leads to thousands of children starving and a slew of animals dying and adults going bankrupt and so on... The answer to that is suffering in on if itself is a necessary component to the growth of human beings. How? Let me explain by giving the simple body versus soul analogy: When you exercise a muscle you are basically overworking it against gravity to attain a healthier fitter muscle via the process of destruction and recovery. The same concept applies to the growth of the soul. One most overwork it and apply effort on it. But while the exercise of the muscle involves defying gravity, the exercise of the soul involves defying evil impulses and sinful desires. And here is the most important point; evil impulses and sinful desires cannot exist without suffering. In fact their relationship is akin to the paradoxical relationship between the chicken and the egg. Most evil impulses and sinful desires are sought in order to escape suffering as much as they are sought to attain pleasure. In return the evil which is done by following sinful desires causes the unnecessary amplification of suffering on earth (30:41: Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned). Which neatly answers the reason why the suffering induced by natural causes exists.
In the end this worldly life is just a means to the end, viewing it as a short journey toward our true ultimate destination would help one attain the true perspective of the matter.
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