Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil

Safaruk Chowdhury is faculty member at Cambridge Muslim College, Whitethread Institute in London and the Ibn Rushd Centre for Excellence for Islamic Research in Birmingham. He is currently academic director at the Centre of Islamic Knowledge (CIK) in Canada. He is the author of A Ṣūfī Apologist of Nishapūr: The Life and Thought of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (2019). He studied philosophy at King’s College, London, and Islamic Studies at al-Azhar University, Cairo, before completing his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is currently executive editor of the Journal of Islamic Philosophy and a teacher and examiner in religious studies and history.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Problem of Evil: OutlinesDisability, Suffering, and Four Theodicies2. Non-human Innocents: Theodicies for the Problem of Animal Pain and Suffering3. Toward an Islamic Evolutionary Theodicy4. Flames of Love and Wrath: Hell and the Problem of Everlasting PunishmentConclusionAppendixNotesBibliographyIndex

"[S]ure to be an invaluable resource for Muslim theologians, a rich repository of references for intellectual historians interested in the theme, and an accessible point of entry for those whose background is in philosophy or theology in another tradition, but who would like an orientation to Muslim resources on this topic. Chowdhury is to be commended for the experimental and synthetic nature of his approach."—Journal of Islamic Studies"A valuable resource for those interested in philosophy of religion, comparative theology, and Islam . . . Recommended."—CHOICE"Wading deep into various philosophical expla-nations and theological traditions, Chowdhury uses each framework to coolly examine the nature of evil via four specific categories—human dis-ability, animal suffering, evolutionary natural selection and hell. It is to his credit that he dissects both the narrow and far-reaching implications of each interpretation while staying focused on 'providing intellectual resources and not finished answers.'” —AramcoWorld“This fascinating work of constructive theology is a significant new contribution to reflection on the problem of evil. Writing from a contemporary Muslim perspective that draws on the rich resources of the Islamic tradition and recent analytical philosophy of religion, Chowdhury ventures fresh interventions on God’s purposes in human disability, animal suffering, evolutionary natural selection, and hell that seek to be both thoughtful and caring.”—Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham"Safaruk Chowdhury has skillfully summoned a diverse range of sources in the Islamic intellectual tradition, producing a rigorous and systematic contribution, both to the contemporary discussion of the problem of evil carried out among contemporary analytic philosophers of religion and to the currently developing field of Islamic analytic theology.”—Edward R. Moad, Qatar University"The question of why humans and non-human creation suffer is a troubling issue even for the most staunch and dedicated religious devotee. In this groundbreaking study, Safaruk Chowdhury has provided an articulate and fascinating exposition of how this question was tackled by the Islamic intellectual tradition through the lens of theodicy and employing contemporary analytical theology as his guiding method. Thus, it is a vital addition to the emergent literature on this underdiscussed and challenging topic."—Gavin Picken, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar