Truth About Islam

The Paradox of Divine Justice in Islam

Absolute Authority vs. Universal Fairness

Introduction

One of the central claims of Islam is that Allah is perfectly just. He is al-ʿAdl (The Just), al-Ḥakam (The Judge), and al-Ḥaqq (The Truth). His decrees, Muslims insist, embody absolute justice, mercy, and wisdom. The Qur’an itself makes the claim in emphatic terms: “Indeed, Allah does not wrong [even] as much as an atom’s weight” (Q 4:40).

Yet when one examines the Qur’an closely, troubling realities emerge. The scripture contains verses that sanction collective punishment (Q 9:5), enshrine gender inequality (Q 4:34, Q 2:282), and explicitly allow slavery and sexual ownership of captives (Q 4:24, Q 23:6, Q 33:50). The question arises: how can divine justice be absolute if it legitimizes practices that violate the very notion of fairness as understood universally?

This essay argues that in Islam, “divine justice” is not a commitment to universal fairness, equality, or individual rights. Instead, it functions as a theological shield: justice is collapsed into obedience to God’s commands, no matter how discriminatory or cruel they may appear. In this sense, Islamic “justice” is absolute only in the sense of absolute authority, not absolute fairness.

1. The Qur’anic Claim of Justice

The Qur’an repeatedly affirms God’s justice and promises that He wrongs no one:

“Indeed, Allah does not do injustice, [even] as much as an atom’s weight” (Q 4:40).
“And your Lord does not wrong anyone” (Q 18:49).
“Indeed, Allah commands justice, good conduct, and giving to relatives and forbids immorality, bad conduct, and oppression” (Q 16:90).

From such verses, Muslim theologians developed the doctrine that Allah’s decrees are the standard of justice. Unlike human judges who can err, God is believed to embody justice itself. His laws, revealed through the Qur’an and the Sunna, are portrayed as perfectly suited to human nature and society.

This conviction underlies much of Islamic theology and law: to question divine justice is, by definition, to rebel against God’s wisdom.

2. Collective Punishment and the “Sword Verse”

2.1 The Text

Perhaps the most striking case of collective punishment appears in Qur’an 9:5, often dubbed the “Sword Verse”:

“Then, when the sacred months have passed, kill the polytheists wherever you find them, capture them, besiege them, and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakāt, then let them go on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”

This command does not target specific guilty individuals, nor does it require proof of individual wrongdoing. Instead, it brands an entire religious category—polytheists—as legitimate targets of death unless they convert or submit to Islamic rule.

2.2 Classical Tafsīr

al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr interpret the verse as a blanket order against Arabian pagans.
The command was only lifted for those who accepted Islam or paid the jizya.
The ruling was not seen as exceptional but as a precedent for dealing with hostile non-Muslims.

2.3 Justice Implications

By any universal definition, collective punishment is unjust. Justice requires punishing individuals for their own crimes, not for group identity. Yet Qur’an 9:5 treats polytheism itself as a crime warranting death. Here, divine “justice” collapses into enforcement of belief conformity.

3. Slavery and Sexual Ownership

3.1 Qur’anic Sanction

The Qur’an refers repeatedly to “those whom your right hands possess”—a euphemism for slaves and, specifically, female captives of war. Examples include:

Q 4:24: “And [forbidden to you are] married women, except those your right hands possess.”
Q 23:5–6: Believers are praised for guarding their chastity, “except with their wives or those their right hands possess.”
Q 33:50: The Prophet himself is granted sexual access to captive women.

3.2 Theological Defense

Classical jurists argued:

Enslaving war captives was more merciful than executing them.
Sexual access to captive women was legitimate ownership, not fornication.
Islam improved the condition of slaves relative to pagan Arabia.

3.3 The Justice Problem

Slavery by definition denies human equality. It strips individuals of autonomy and legal personhood. Moreover, sexual slavery introduces exploitation under the guise of divine sanction. If Allah is perfectly just, why institutionalize ownership of humans rather than abolish it outright?

Modern attempts to reinterpret these verses as “marriage” or “temporary measures” collapse under scrutiny: no verse abrogates slavery, and hadith reports confirm sexual use of captives (e.g., Sahih Muslim 3371).

4. Gender Inequality

Justice, if absolute, would seem to require equality before the law. Yet the Qur’an introduces hierarchies:

Q 4:34 authorizes husbands to discipline wives physically.
Q 2:282 gives women’s testimony half the weight of men’s.
Q 4:11 grants daughters half the inheritance of sons.

These are not incidental details but integral to the Qur’an’s legal system. Justice here is explicitly gendered: men are guardians, women subordinate.

5. Theological Justifications

Muslim theologians across history developed strategies to defend these rulings:

5.1 Ashʿarī Divine Command Theory

Justice is defined by what God commands.
If God orders slavery, then slavery is just—by definition.
Human reason has no authority to challenge divine decrees.

5.2 Muʿtazilī Rationalism

God must act justly in rational terms.
But what appears unjust has hidden wisdom (e.g., slavery as a lesser evil, collective punishment as deterrence).
Human moral judgment must defer to divine knowledge.

5.3 The Sufi Mystical Approach

Attributes of wrath and mercy are manifestations of divine names.
Apparent cruelty is part of a hidden cosmic balance.
Justice is not about fairness but about divine harmony beyond human grasp.

Each school preserves the claim of divine justice, but only by redefining “justice” away from fairness and equality.

6. The Euthyphro Problem in Islam

This tension mirrors the classical Euthyphro dilemma:

Is something just because God commands it?
Or does God command it because it is just?

Islam, particularly in Ashʿarī theology, resolves the dilemma by identifying justice entirely with divine command. There is no independent standard of fairness. If God decreed cruelty, it would be just by definition.

This preserves divine sovereignty at the cost of collapsing justice into raw authority.

7. Modern Apologetics

Today, Muslim intellectuals attempt to square Qur’anic rulings with universal human rights:

Contextualization: 9:5 applied only to a specific conflict; slavery was a stage toward abolition.
- Problem: the texts never abolish these practices.
Reinterpretation: “Right hand possession” means marriage, not slavery.
- Problem: contradicted by hadith and tafsīr.
Moral Relativism: Justice is relative; what was just in the 7th century may differ today.
- Problem: undermines the claim of timeless, absolute justice.

These strategies reveal the difficulty of reconciling Qur’anic rulings with universal principles.

8. Absolute Authority vs. Absolute Fairness

The heart of the issue is definitional.

Universal fairness means equality before the law, proportionate punishment, and protection of human dignity regardless of status.
Islamic justice, as embedded in the Qur’an and Shariah, means obedience to divine command, even when it enshrines inequality and collective punishment.

Thus, when Muslims call Allah “absolutely just,” they mean His authority is absolute, not that His laws conform to universal fairness.

9. The Political Function of “Divine Justice”

The insistence on absolute justice serves a practical function:

Theological shield: Criticism of Shariah becomes criticism of God.
Political tool: Rulers justify harsh punishments as divine will.
Social order: Hierarchies of gender, religion, and status are presented as divinely ordained, beyond reform.

The doctrine ensures that injustice cannot be named as such, since whatever God commands is rebranded as justice.

10. Conclusion

The paradox of divine justice in Islam is this: the Qur’an proclaims God’s justice as absolute, yet institutes laws that embody inequality, cruelty, and domination. Muslim theologians resolve the tension by redefining justice as obedience, collapsing fairness into divine authority.

This has profound implications. It means that Islam’s conception of justice is not universal but particularist: just for Muslims, just for men, just for masters. What the modern world calls injustice—collective punishment, slavery, gender inequality—is absorbed into the category of divine justice.

Thus, Islamic theology does not so much answer the problem of injustice as it renders the question unaskable. If Allah commands it, it is just—even if it is, by every rational standard, unjust. In this sense, divine justice in Islam is not about fairness at all. It is about submission.