Allah sent Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). Allah destroyed a group through jihad, while many times their number among the People of the Book were guided through him. As for those among the People of the Book whom Allah humbled through subjugation and humiliation, or the polytheists upon whom He imposed humiliation, their subjugation was a mercy to them, lest their disbelief grow greater and their evil increase. Then, after them, others received guidance and mercy in numbers known only to Allah. People from among them continue to be guided, one group after another, through the blessing of his religion’s ascendancy by proof and force. The benefit of sending him, granting him might, and making his religion prevail brought mercy incomparably greater than the limited, relative evil that this brought upon some people, especially given the goodness and wisdom contained even in that. For nothing Allah, glorified be He, has created is pure evil; rather, its evil is relative.
Section
The Fifth Distinction
All the good deeds a person performs are positive realities with which Allah has blessed him. They come about through Allah’s will, mercy, wisdom, power, and creative act. There is nothing in good deeds that is merely an absence and is not attributable to