“Why, when a calamity befell you after you had inflicted twice as much, did you say, ‘Where did this come from?’ Say, ‘It is from yourselves.’”

[Surah Āl Imrān: 165]

This is because Allah does good and is just. Every blessing from Him is grace, and every punishment from Him is justice. He bestows goodness upon the servant without any cause on the servant’s part, purely out of grace and beneficence, and He punishes him only for his sin. Although He created all actions for a wisdom of His in doing so, He is Wise and Just, placing all things in their proper places, and your Lord wrongs no one.

If someone other than Allah punishes his servant (1) for his wrongdoing, even though (2) he acknowledges that Allah is the Creator of the servants’ actions, and this is not injustice on his part, then it is all the more fitting that it should not be injustice on Allah’s part. Likewise, a person may (3) bring about a benefit dictated by his wisdom that can be achieved only by causing an animal to suffer, without this being injustice on his part (4); then it is all the more fitting that this should not be injustice on Allah’s part.

The Second Aspect:

It may be said: These actions are from Allah insofar as He creates them (5) in another and makes them the deed of another; and they are from the servant insofar as they are an act [of his] subsisting in him and an acquisition through which he brings benefit to himself (6) or wards off harm. The fact that the servant is the one in whom the act subsists and to whom its particular consequence accrues—whether he benefits from it or is harmed by it (7)—is an aspect that cannot apply to Allah, for there do not subsist in Allah