So, this God then...

Yes, the "free will" idea plays a part in the plan.  If every injustice  were intercepted, we would not be playing much part in our own  lives ... The more important idea though, is the relative shortness of life as  compared to eternity.  In other words, God does not allow injustice  and the suffering begotten by it to continue for very long, relative  to the total span of life.  As humans, we see our earthly existence  as  "all that there is", while in fact it is but a blink in the temporal  landscape as viewed by the eye of God.

Although God in the Quran tells people to learn and seek education. Does God want us to be atheists ? Plenty of clever people believe in God. Why are so many scientists reverting to Islam based on the scientific miracles of the Quran ?

God is Awesome. He created us and gave us Free Will. Free Will changes everything, God did not want to control us like Robots. He provided us with the Tools and materials to either build up or Tear down, To Kill or to Love, To Follow Jesus or be led Astray.

God does not inflict pain and suffering on his children, People using their Free Will to commit those acts are doing it. God does not control every breathe of every man or woman, He allows us to Sow the seeds We choose (Free Will) . God judges those people (All of us) when they come before him. He wil not stop a murderer from murdering, just like he Will not stop a thief from stealing, or an Adulterer from coveting, these things are the Tests that we must to pass to enter his Kingdom. We are Free to commit Good or Evil until our day of judgement, Before Who ? Before God, and at that time your Free Will shall be taken into account. 

Remember.! the bible was written by man.

Some of the Bible was written by man, most was written by God. Following all of Gods messengers is a very good idea, the first two commandments given to Moses, for example, they are among the best of the Bible !

Salaam, to all especially the author of this piece

An interesting opinion especially as when I was young and attending church as a Christian with my mother I wondered the very same thing.

I used to think I know that God excists but why do so many people suffer, especially the little babies in Africa (as i have always had a overwhelmingly strong love of little ones)

I considered this for many years, asking and never recieving an answer that satisfied my curiosity.

Then about 2 years ago now I began to become very interested in the religion of Islam, due to the fact that I was working with many Muslims and noticed the love they had for their deen and they spoke at length on religious topics such as this one the author is questioning.

So I began my own research and began to find that all my questions could be answered in a logical and definate mannor within the religion of Islam.

Thus began my personal conversion to Islam

Now to attempt to answer your question, but forgive me I am no Scholar, this is just from what I have studied myself

I shall begin by giving you a very short introduction to the basic beliefs of the begining of creation which was where evil made its first appearance according to Islam.

In the begining Allah (god) created the Angels and the Jinn.

Here I would like to point out to you that although some comments on here claim that Satan was an Angel the Quran teaches us that he was from amoung the Jinn, I will explain this later.

You will be familier with the term Angel but perhaps not of Jinn, the Jinn are beings that we cannot see, their are good and bad Jinn, the good asist us, the bad help Shaitan, Iblis (satan) the strongest of them in his never ending job of misguidance to mankind.

Now when Allah created Adam he ordered all the inhabitants of heaven to bow down to him, the Angels complied as they have no "free choice" and can only do as Allah bids them to do. The only one who did not bow was Satan.

Now you may well be wondering, "well if Satan was not an Angel what was he doing in Heaven?" He was their as he had an elivated status due to the ammount of prayer he directed towards Allah so Allah liked him very much.

Now to prove that Satan was not an Angel, I would ask you to think, that if Angels have no free will/choice (as even the bible states) and Satan was an Angel, how could he refuse to Kneel to Adam on the order of Allah?

How does this tie in to the first of evils, well when Satan refused to kneel it was because he thought himself superior to Adam, he said, "You made him of clay and me of the smokeless fire I am better than him" This is what we call arogance, which in Islam is a sin, And is considered a sin amoung all religions.

As a result of this Allah evicted Satan from Heaven promising him a painfull torment. As Satan was angry he vowed to lead as many of Allahs creation astray thus making them enter Hell alongside him on the day of Judgement.

Now Allah allowed him to do this by promising him respite untill the day of Judgement where all of us will recieve our rewards or punishments based on our deeds and actions.

So Satan goes about the place leading us to sin which angers Allah as he desires the best for his creation.

Now you may well ask, "ok, if Satan is leading us astray then why is Allah angry at us?" Well this is easy to answer, because we are listening to him (Satan) and commiting all kinds of sins that expressly go against the teachings of the three devine religions, (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) Sins such as not giving charity, murder, adultery etc.

Now in Islam we have a belief that every single thing that we do or say is recorded so that for every single good deed we do we will get the reward for it and the same as punishment for the bad.

We also have a belief that their has to be suffering for some, 1, to see what they do as a result of that suffering and 2, as a test to those who are not suffering, do they help them, give them money , food etc as if you think about it we all have to be assessed as to weither we deserve the hell or the Jannah (paradise) based on our individual deeds and actions.

At this point I would like to use something said by a gentelman called Shiekh Yusuf Estes who is a convert to Islam from Christianity. He used to be a Christian preacher and missionary untill he was guided to Islam, he now gives lectures and is a scholar of the deen

He says,

"When Allah created the Heaven and the Hell, he created the inhabitants of both places. He could have immediatly deposited them in their lodging places, the ones in the Junnah (heaven) would have been so happy, saying, "wow, we must have been really great guys". The ones in the Hell would have said, "What did we do" a ligitimate complaint, dont you think?"

Based on this statement it shows us that the reason we are here is to live a  life that is observed, (by Allah) so that we can be judged in the hereafter), it is almost as if we are on trial and we either get a "get out of jaol free card" (paradise) or we get sent to joal (hell)

So you see if Allah created Good (as their is much of it in this world) their has to be evil, everything in this life has to be balanced, up, down, left, right etc, as a test to all human beings.

If this world was only good what was the point of Hell being created?

I hope you find this helpful,

Asalam Alaykum (peace be unto you)

These discussions always ask why God allows so much evil in the world, but no one ever asks, " What if God is NOT allowing certain evil?  What evil is God hold back that we never see?  Every year there are storms and earthquakes and floods and other natural disasters where no one is hurt or loses property.  One of the most massive wildfires in the history of Santa Cruz County in California was recently contained without the loss of a single life or home.Most of the evil we see in the world is man-made and encouraged by man.  God doesn't stick needles in the arms of junkies, or encourage spousal abuse or spread sexually transmitted diseases.  People do.  And there are plenty of God-given reasons why you should avoid those practices, yet people continue to do them.  God doesn't force people to live in flood plains, or active earthquake faults or in the paths of hurricanes, yet God gets blamed for the heartache that comes when people just flat out refuse to accept the warnings that are very clear.Most people don't thank God for all the good things in their life, but they are very quick to blame him for the consequences of their own actions or the actions of their neighbors or governments.  Sometimes the only thing God can do is contain the collateral damage that we inflict.