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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islamic Philosophy and the Problem of Evil; a Philosophical Theodicy Solutions of the Problem of Evil As I noted before, we may distinguish between several versions of "the problem of evil". In other words, we face a cluster of problems collected under this title. So, it would be natural that these different problems must be considered and solved separately.

In Islamic philosophy, we find a lot of theories and discussions which after all can serve as philosophical materials for constructing solutions for these problems. Nevertheless, we rarely find Islamic philosophers who undertook some efforts to distinguish between different solutions.21 Thus, we have to link each of those theories to an appropriate solution as far as possible. The Negative Nature of Evils As we saw before, almost all Muslim philosophers advocate TNNE .

This theory about the negative nature of evils, can help us to face one of the versions of the problem of evil which I already called "the creation-dualistic problem". The problem is that it is impossible that God, as the absolute good and benevolent, brings about the evils in our world. So, there must be another creator who creates the evil against God's will.

But, according to philosophical principles as well as Islamic teachings about the monotheism, it is impossible for the universe to have two first efficient causes or two ultimate creators. According to TNNE , we can make a short and conclusive reply: Evil, as something which is of non-existential entity, does not need to any cause or creator at all.

For Muslim philosophers, the cause and its effect are two existents so that the latter is dependent on the former in its existence.22 So, a nonexistent entity could neither be a cause nor an effect. At most, we can say (almost in a metaphoric sense) that a nonexistent entity is the effect of the nonexistence of its cause. In short, a non-existential entity cannot have an existential cause.

Assuming the above view on causation, we can conclude that evil, given its non-existential nature, does not really have any cause. Consequently, evils are created neither by God nor by any other being; in fact, they are not created at all.

Sadra refers to this solution in a short passage: "And you have known that evil is nonexistence or a non-existential thing and nonexistence surely does not require any cause…and so is the non-existential entity inasmuch as it is non-existential." (Mulla Sadra, 1963, pp.