Editing Theodicy (section)

=== Mu'tazilism and Falsafa===
[[Mu'tazila]] theologians approached the problem of theodicy within a framework of [[moral realism]], according to which the moral value of acts is accessible to unaided reason, so that humans can make moral judgments about divine acts.<ref name=shihadeh>{{cite encyclopedia|first=Ayman |last=Shihadeh |title=Suffering|editor-first=Josef W. |editor-last=Meri|encyclopedia=Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia|publisher=Routledge|year=2005|page=772|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LaV-IGZ8VKIC&pg=PA772|isbn=978-0-415-96692-4}}</ref> They argued that the divine act of creation is good despite existence of suffering, because it allows humans a compensation of greater reward in the afterlife.<ref name=shihadeh/> They posited that individuals have free will to commit evil and absolved God of responsibility for such acts.<ref name=shihadeh/> God's justice thus consists of punishing wrongdoers.<ref name=shihadeh/> Following the demise of Mu'tazila as a school, their theodicy was adopted in the [[Zaydi]] and [[Twelver]] branches of [[Shia Islam]].<ref name=shihadeh/>

[[Ibn Sina]], the most influential Muslim philosopher, analyzed theodicy from a purely ontological, [[neoplatonic]] standpoint, aiming to prove that God, as the absolutely good First Cause, created a good world.<ref name=shihadeh/> Ibn Sina argued that evil refers either to a cause of an entity (such as burning in a fire), being a quality of another entity, or to its imperfection (such as blindness), in which case it does not exist as an entity. According to Ibn Sina, such qualities are necessary attributes of the best possible order of things, so that the good they serve is greater than the harm they cause.<ref name=shihadeh/>

Philosophical Sufi theologians such as [[Ibn Arabi]] were influenced by the neoplatonic theodicy of [[Ibn Sina]].<ref name=shihadeh/> [[Al-Ghazali]] anticipated the optimistic theodicy of Leibniz in his dictum "There is nothing in possibility more wonderful than what is."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Religious Diversity, Evil, and a Variety of Theodicies |first=Michael L. |last=Peterson|encyclopedia=The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity|editor-first=Chad |editor-last=Meister|year=2011|page=162|url=http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195340136.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195340136-e-12|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[Fakhr al-Din al-Razi]], who represented the mainstream Sunni view, challenged Ibn Sina's analysis and argued that it merely sidesteps the real problem of evil, which is rooted in the human experience of suffering in a world that contains more pain than pleasure.<ref name=shihadeh/>