aqq, the Truth and Reality, from which comes the word for...

aqq, the Truth and Reality, from which comes the word for what each thing is due and also the word for law and rights, to which we shall turn in the next chapter. Being absolute Truth and Reality, and ultimately the only Reality, without any division or delimitation in His Essence, God is Justice Itself, for He is all Himself and nothing but Himself.

There is no possibility of disequilibrium or disorder, hence injustice, within Him, for there is no other reality within or outside of Him to even make possible bringing such a thing about. Metaphysically and theologically speaking, only God is in fact perfect and infinite justice as well as the perfect dispenser of justice.

Over the centuries, Muslim theologians debated whether whatever God did was just by virtue of its being His act, or whether God, being God, could not but act justly and His being just was comprehensible to us according to the discernment of our intelligence given by Him. The Ash‘arites, who dominated Sunni theology for a millennium, took the first position and the Sunni Mu‘tazilites as well as the Shi‘ites took the second position.

But the net result, as far as the general Islamic worldview is concerned, was the same, namely, that God is perfectly just and the perfect administrator of justice throughout His creation. The Quran asserts, “Perfect is the Word of thy Lord in truth and justice” (6:115); also, “Maintaining His creation in justice, there is no god save He” (3:18). God has created all things according to justice and wants men and women, to whom He has given free will, to be just.

Three times in the Quran it is asserted that God loves the just. It is on the basis of this cosmic and also human justice that God judges human beings. The Quran confirms the central importance of the role of God as judge as revealed earlier in the Torah. In fact, the Quran states explicitly, “We gave the Children of Israel the Book, the Judgment” (45:16), and “they [the Children of Israel] have the Torah where God has delivered judgments for them” (5:108).

The pious among Muslims, when confronted with enmity and oppression, shared the sentiments so powerfully expressed in the Psalms: “Arise, O Lord, in Thine anger, lift up Thyself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that Thou hast commanded” (7:6). In the Quranic perspective God is also the supreme judge. “Thou shalt judge between Thy servants” (39:46), and “He is the best of judges” (12:80).