Responding to the contradiction in the Qur’an regarding proving the power of God

 Content of the doubt:

Some skeptics imagine that there is a contradiction between the verses that prove the absolute glory and power of God - Glory be to Him - including His Almighty saying: (And if those who do wrong could see when they see the punishment that all power belongs to God and that God is severe in punishment (165)) (Al-Baqarah), and His Almighty saying: (And God is over all things competent (284)) (Al-Baqarah), and His Almighty saying: (They seek to deceive God and those who believe, but they deceive not except themselves and perceive [it] not (9)) (Al-Baqarah), and His Almighty saying: (Indeed, the hypocrites seek to deceive God, and it is He who deceives them) (An-Nisa’: 142), and His Almighty saying: (And if God had willed, He could have made you one nation, but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And you will surely be asked about what you used to do (93)) (An-Nahl), and His Almighty saying: (Indeed, those who abuse God and His Messenger - God has cursed them in this world and the Hereafter and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment (57)) (Al-Ahzab). They ask: If God has proven to Himself absolute glory and power, how can He allow the hypocrites to deceive Him and the unbelievers to harm Him and His Messenger whom He sent to the people? Is this not evidence of the confusion of the Qur’an?! Their aim behind this is to challenge the infallibility of the Holy Qur’an from error and confusion.

Ways to refute the doubt:

1) God - the Almighty - is the King and He is over all things competent.

2) Deceit, trickery, and harm are characteristics of the weak, and whoever deceives God is in fact deceiving himself.

3) God Almighty does not care whether people agree or disagree, but rather they and their judgment are in His hand.

4) God’s command to do something is different from His permission for it to happen.

5) Harming God and His Messenger is not like harming one person by another, and scholars have opinions in interpreting its meaning that deny what these claimants have said.

Details:

First. God - the Almighty - is the King and He is over all things competent:

When Allah - the Almighty - wants to decree a matter, He says to it: “Be,” and it is. Allah the Almighty said: “His command, when He intends a thing, is only to say to it, “Be,” and it is. (82) So exalted is He in Whose hand is the dominion over all things, and to Him you will be returned. (83)” (Ya Sin). Allah the Almighty has decreed that His is the kingdom, His is the command, and His is the judgment. He has decreed that He has power over all things. Has anyone from the history of mankind tried to violate these decrees? Allah the Almighty has decreed that glory belongs to Him, to His Messenger, and to the believers. Has this truth been denied?!

Secondly. The deceit and trickery of the servant with God falls on the servant himself, so it is a metaphor and naming the punishment by the name of the sin:

Our scholars said in their interpretation of the words of Allah the Almighty: (They deceive Allah and those who believe) (Al-Baqarah: 9) meaning: They deceive Allah, i.e. they deceive Him in their own eyes and according to their assumptions. It was said: He said that because their actions are the actions of the deceiver. It was also said: There is an omission in the speech, the meaning being: They deceive the Messenger of Allah - may Allah bless him and grant him peace - and He made their deception of His Messenger a deception of Him; because He called them with His message. Likewise, if they deceive the believers, then they have deceived Allah. And their deception is what they showed of faith contrary to what they concealed of disbelief; so that they may protect their blood and wealth, and think that they have been saved and deceived, said a group of interpreters. The linguists said: The root of deception in the speech of the Arabs is corruption, as Tha’lab narrated from Ibn al-A’rabi. And he recited:

White in color and delicious in taste

Good saliva if saliva deceives

His saying: (They deceive Allah) according to this means: They corrupt their faith and their deeds between themselves and Allah - Glory be to Him - by showing off. This is how it was explained from the Prophet - may Allah bless him and grant him peace - and in the revelation: (They show off to people) (An-Nisa’: 142). It was said: Its origin is concealment, and from it comes the word “the closet” in a house in which something is kept, as narrated by Ibn Faris and others. The Arabs say: The monitor lizard was deceived in its hole.

And the saying of the Almighty: (And they deceive none but themselves, and they perceive [it] not (9)) (Al-Baqarah) is a negation and an affirmation, meaning: The consequences of deception only befall them. And from their saying: Whoever deceives someone who cannot be deceived is only deceiving himself. And this is correct; because deception is only with someone who does not know the inner meanings, but as for someone who knows the inner meanings, whoever enters into deception with him is only deceiving himself. This indicates that the hypocrites did not know God; because if they knew Him, they would have known that He does not deceive [1].

As for deception from God, it does not mean that it is like their deception, but rather it is their punishment for their deception. So He called the punishment by the name of the sin, and the Arabs use this a lot in their speech, including the saying of Amr ibn Kulthum:

Let no one be ignorant of us

We are more ignorant than the ignorant

He called his victory ignorance, and ignorance is not something a rational person would boast about. Rather, he said it to double the words and make it easier on the tongue than contradicting them. When the Arabs used a word to respond to another word and recompense it, they would mention it with the same wording even if it differed in meaning. This is what the Qur’an and Sunnah say. Allah the Almighty said: “And they planned, and Allah planned” (Al Imran: 54). The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Allah does not get tired until you get tired” [2], and he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Allah does not get tired until you get tired” [3]. And the like of this: mockery and plotting, if they are attributed to Allah the Almighty, they mean nothing but revenge, punishment and recompense for their actions [4].

Thirdly. God - Glory be to Him - is not concerned with whether people agree or disagree, but rather they and their judgment are in His hand:

As for the evidence of these people for the power of God in His Almighty saying: (And if God had willed, He could have made you one nation) (An-Nahl: 93), it is not correct. For He, glory be to Him, knows that with His power He is pleased with the existence of disagreement, and the king in this world fears that his followers will disagree, because he does not know how to govern them. But if they were one group, it would be easy for him to lead them.

As for our Lord, Blessed and Exalted be He, because He does not care whether people agree or disagree - rather their affair and judgment are in His hand - He willed that they not be one nation. The verse uses the word “if” which indicates impossibility for impossibility, so unity among all people was impossible because He did not will it.

Fourth: God’s command to do something is different from His permission for it to happen:

If these people understood what was meant by the Almighty’s saying: (And if Allah had willed, He could have made you one nation), they would have known that Allah commands what He wills, and allows what He has decreed to happen in His kingdom. Thus, He tests people’s faith. He has asked people to believe, and He has decreed disbelief for the disbelievers, even though He did not approve of it from them. However, the disbelievers disbelieved, not in spite of Allah, but because Allah did not will faith for them, due to His comprehensive knowledge that they would prefer blindness to guidance.

The commentators say about the words of God Almighty: (And if God had willed, He could have made you one nation), meaning: He made people “one nation” in agreement on Islam, (but) He does not will that out of consideration for wisdom, rather (He misguides whom He wills) misguiding him by creating in him misguidance in what He directs his choice following his readiness to obtain it, (and you will surely be asked) all of you on the Day of Resurrection, a question of accountability and recompense, not a question of inquiry, (about what you used to do (93)) (An-Nahl), you continued to do what you did in this world, and the verse is clear that God Almighty’s will for all of creation to be Muslim did not happen, and that He Almighty willed for them to separate and differ, so faith and disbelief, belief and denial, and the matter happened as God Almighty willed.

Al-Zamakhshari stated that the meaning is: If He had willed, by way of compulsion[5] and coercion[6], He would have made you one Muslim nation, for He, glory be to Him, is able to do that. However, wisdom required that He should misguide and let down whomever He wills of those whom He, glory be to Him, knows will choose disbelief and persist in it, and guide whomever He wills by being kind to those whom He knows will choose faith. The result is that He, glory be to Him, based the matter on choice, and on what deserves kindness and let down, reward and punishment.

What supports what was mentioned above is that when God Almighty charged the Children of Israel with fulfilling the covenant and forbidding its violation, He followed it up with a statement that God Almighty is able to unite them in this fulfillment and in all aspects of faith, but He Almighty, in His divine wisdom, misguides whomever He wills and guides whomever He wills[7].

Fifth: Harming God and His Messenger is not like harming other human beings:

As for the issue of harming God and harming the Messenger, he mentioned two things after that: cursing and torture. Cursing is the punishment of God, because whoever harms the King, He keeps him away from his door if he does not order his punishment, and torture is the punishment for harming the Messenger. It cannot be said that whoever harms God and does not harm the Messenger will not be punished, because we say that the separation of one from the other is impossible from this perspective, because whoever harms God has harmed the Messenger. As for the other perspective, which is that whoever harms the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - and does not harm God is like someone who disobeyed without associating partners with God, and like someone who commits immorality or wickedness without apostasy and disbelief, he has harmed the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - but God - Glory be to Him - is Patient, Forgiving, and Merciful, so He rewards him with punishment and does not curse him.

As for His, the Most High, saying: (Indeed, those who harm Allah and His Messenger) (Al-Ahzab: 57 ), what is meant by harm is either committing what He does not approve of, such as disbelief and major sins, and the speech is metaphorical because it is a cause or a consequence of it. It was said about harming Him, the Most High: It is the saying of the Jews, Christians and polytheists: “The hand of Allah is chained, and the Messiah is the son of Allah, and the angels are the daughters of Allah, and the idols are His partners, Allah is far above that, far above it.” So the matter is not as these claimants think; that if Allah had power and strength, He would have been able to prevent harm from Himself, and no one would have been able to harm Him.

It is also possible that the harm is in its true form, and the speech is about the deletion of an added word: that he harms the friends of God and His Messenger. It was said: It is possible that what is meant by it is the metaphorical meaning in relation to Him, the Most High, and the real meaning in relation to His Messenger - may God bless him and grant him peace [8].

Conclusion:

God Almighty has proven for Himself the attributes that befit Him. He is the Master of the universe and He is capable of everything. Everything in the heavens and on the earth returns to Him. Among these attributes is the attribute of absolute power over everything. Nothing is beyond His power, no matter how great its status.

The hypocrites’ deception of God Almighty and His Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, is not in reality, but rather metaphorically. The meaning of “they deceive God” is that they think that their tricks will work with God Almighty. Of course not, they are in reality deceiving themselves, because God Almighty does not deceive like humans.

Nothing happens in the universe without God Almighty’s knowledge of it. He commands whatever He wills and allows whatever He wants to happen in His kingdom. He is the One who has decreed faith for the Muslim, and He is the One who has decreed disobedience for the disbeliever, because of His prior knowledge that he will not follow the path of truth.

· The commentators differed about what is meant by harming Allah and His Messenger. Some of them said: committing what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden. Some of them said: there is an omission in the verse, and the original is: they harm the friends of Allah and His Messenger. Some of them said: harming Allah - the Almighty - is metaphorical, and harming Allah's Messenger is literal. Based on these interpretations - and others - the claim of these people that the Holy Quran is not infallible is invalidated.

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(*) Al-Bayan fi refutation of the imaginary contradiction between the verses of the Qur’an, Dr. Muhammad Abu al-Nur al-Hadidi, Al-Amanah Library, Cairo, 1401 AH/1981 AD. Questions without answers, Samuel Abdul-Masih, Al-Kalima website. Is the Qur’an infallible? Abdullah Abdul-Fadi, Islamiyat website. www.islameyat.com

[1] The Compendium of the Rulings of the Qur’an, Al-Qurtubi, Dar Ihya’ Al-Turath Al-Arabi, Beirut, 1405 AH/1985 AD, Vol. 1, pp. 195, 196.

[2] It was narrated by Al-Bukhari in his Sahih, Book of Fasting, Chapter on Fasting in Sha’ban (1869), and in other places, and by Muslim in his Sahih, Book of Fasting, Chapter on the Prophet’s fasting - may God bless him and grant him peace - other than in Ramadan (2779).

[3] Narrated by Muslim in his Sahih, Book of the Prayer of Travelers and Shortening It, Chapter on the command of someone who is in a state of distress during his prayer or who finds the Qur’an or remembrance difficult to understand, to lie down or sit until that goes away (1869).

[4] The Compendium of the Rulings of the Qur’an, Al-Qurtubi, Dar Ihya’ Al-Turath Al-Arabi, Beirut, 1405 AH/1985 AD, Vol. 1, pp. 207, 208, with some modifications.

[5] Compulsion: compulsion.

[6] Coercion: oppression.

[7] See: Ruh al-Ma’ani, al-Alusi, Dar Ihya al-Turath, Bayut, when interpreting the verse.

[8] See the interpretations: Ruh al-Ma’ani, al-Alusi. Al-Bahr al-Muhit, Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi, Al-Nasr Modern Press, Riyadh, 1954 AD. Al-Kashaf, al-Zamakhshari, Dar al-Fikr, Beirut, 1397 AH/1997 AD. Mafatih al-Ghayb, al-Razi, al-Bahiyya al-Masryia Press, Cairo, 1301 AH, when interpreting the verse.