The problem of evil in the tractates of Ikhwan al Safa

The problem of evil is one of fundamental problems in Religious Philosophy. The problem originates from the idea that claims evil in the universe invalidates the existence of the God who is omniscient, omnipotent and wholly good. This has been the base reference for atheists denying existence of the God, agnostics claiming impossibility of proving existence or nonexistence of the God and sceptics which are in doubt about the existence of the God. In this study, we discuss perception of Ikhwan-ı Safa on the evilness problem and their proposal to handle it. Ikhwan-ı Safa are known as the first Islamic philosophes beside al Kindi and al Farabi. According to Ikhwan-ı Safa, there exists a God who created everything from the nonexistence, who is omniscient, omnipotent and whally good, who is eternal and perpetual, who need not anything but everything is in need of him. Everything in this universe is created by the God. There is no problem in the creation and regulation of the universe. Everything which exists in the universe came to existence at a time, space and form as it should be. Some happenings at different time points affecting particular beings negatively cannot be evaluated as evil thus the God cannot be blamed as those happenings are beneficial to the universal beings. The responsibility of the evil behaviors belongs to the people causing them as people behave evil on their free decisions. Such evil behaviors are to be compensated afterlife by punishing the people performing them and by rewarding the victims. Key Words: Ikhwan al Safa, God, Universe, Goodness, Evilness, Universal, Particular