If it is said that He creates what is pure evil, this would not inspire His servants to love and praise Him, but rather the opposite. Hence many of these people utter blame and abuse in poetry and prose. Many of their shaykhs and scholars express such sentiments; even when one does not voice them, his heart is filled with them, but he sees no benefit in expressing them, or fears the Muslims. Similar sentiments appear in the poetry of some shaykhs, and they advance the arguments of Iblīs and his followers against Allah.

This contradicts how He describes Himself in His words:

“Your Lord is never unjust to His servants.”

“We did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves.”

Thus the words, “The truest words a servant has said,” imply that praising Him is the truest thing a servant has said, because He, glory be to Him, does nothing but good. And He, glory be to Him, … (1) (*).

And man’s soul is naturally active in a manner that inevitably involves evil, in accordance with consummate wisdom and as an abundant blessing.

If it is asked, “Why, then, did He not create it differently?” the answer is that this would have meant creating a being other than man, and the wise purpose of his creation would not have been fulfilled. This was the angels’ question when they said:

“Will You place in it someone who will spread corruption there and shed blood?”

—through to His words—

“Indeed, I know what you do not know.”

He thus knew aspects of the wisdom in creating this being that the angels did not know. How, then, could individual human beings know them? And the human soul was created as the Most High has said: