How can we reconcile the concept of evil in the world with the concept of God being All-Powerful and at the same time, being good?

The fact is that we understand things through their opposites, we understand good by knowing evil. So evil has to be present for us to know good. Issues that relate to things, which are evil in and of themselves can create a greater good. Basically whatever Allah creates, is good, it is either good in and of itself, produces good and it’s good, or it appears to be evil in and of itself but it produces good.

As to things, which are in fact evil in and of themselves and produce evil, this is only in the case of human beings or the jinn - those who have an evil intent and do evil. However even that aspect of evil is still within the overall scheme of good which God has created. Because for God to permit that evil to take place is for Him to be directly or indirectly related to that evil so it becomes a part of His creation. So where that evil is not going to produce a greater good then Allah doesn’t permit it to happen, just as many people plan evil things in different times in their lives and they try to execute it but they can’t. So in this case God has not permitted it. In the case where God permits it to take place, there are good results, which we are not able to grasp, which we are not able to understand, but we realize that since God is ultimately good, there is good behind it even though we may not be able to grasp it. God is All-Wise. Our ability to grasp His wisdom, wisdom of the things that He does is limited. Those things which Allah shows us, the end results etc., we can ultimately see the good but those things which are not shown to us, we just have to believe that ultimately there is good to it. As we function in this world recognizing there are so many cases of things, where we do them, we accept them, not because of themselves but because of the good that would come from them, harm which comes to us, but we accept that harm for the good which the harm will bring.

There is always good behind the trials and the difficulties. We have it for example when we go out on a journey. The journey may be a very tiresome journey, long and arduous and you suffer on the way. However where we are headed, the goal at the end of it all is what we are seeking. So we will bear that harm, we will bear the difficulty etc., because we want to get to that goal. We do that all the time in our lives. And this is why the Prophet (ﷺ) warned us saying ‘The Hell Fire is veiled by pleasurable things’, things which are pleasing to our desires. But what is behind it is Hell, evil, the greater evil. Whereas Paradise, ‘Paradise is veiled by things which our souls don’t desire, things which we find unpleasant’, things which we find difficultly with. For example, getting up in the early morning for prayer. It’s difficult. There’s difficulty there. But the reward of it is far greater. And that’s the reality that the path to Paradise is a difficult path. It’s a path of striving, struggling with our desires, avoiding what is evil though it may be attractive to us, though it may seem enjoyable. This is the path to Paradise. This is a difficult path. And those who offer us shortcuts, who say, ‘No, No you can get there very easily. You don’t need to do all this stuff. Just do this little thing or do that little thing or whatever and you got it’. This is a trick. This is a satanic trick. The path to Paradise is not short. It is a long and arduous path, the path of a lifetime, a lifetime struggling to do well.

So the consequences of evil in this world, with regards to certain good which Allah seeks from us as human beings, whether it is worshiping him, whether it is fighting in the way of Allah - Jihad, even if it is giving thanks. All of these things become manifest when something of evil comes to us, things are taken away from us, and calamities strike us. When these things happen then we turn to God, then we worship God. So we can find in it, these calamities, benefits to our lives. Iblees himself, he had a role to play in terms of Adam’s (عَلَيْهِ السَّلاَمُ) disobedience. He had a role to play in that initial error. And he was himself disobedient in his refusal to bow or to prostrate before Adam (عَلَيْهِ السَّلاَمُ) in recognition of Adam’s (عَلَيْهِ السَّلاَمُ) superiority. God has created human beings on a plane superior to that of the jinn. However, in this disobedience of Satan and its spilling into our world, it becomes a means of greater good. Human beings coming in contact with it, realizing their errors, turning back to God and God forgiving them, this greater good is the reason for the creation of that evil element. To worship God, to praise Him, to be thankful to Him, to seek His forgiveness, to trust in Him, to love Him, all of these things become reality in our lives when we struggle with the forces of evil within our lives.