The Moral Accountability of God in the Quran from the Perspectives of Ash'arite and Adliyya Exegeses

The discussion about the morality of God is one of the significant topics in philosophy and theology. The question is whether God behaves morally, whether He ought to behave morally, or not. One of the important implications of this discussion is answering the question of whether God is morally accountabe or not.

In Islamic culture, this debate can be traced through the well-known dispute over husn (goodness) and qubh (evil) among theologians. From the perspective of the Ash'arites, God is not bound by morality, and therefore, He is not morally accountabe. In contrast, the Adliyya (Mu'tazilites and Imami Shi'a) believe that God must act morally and, as a result, must also be morally accountabe.

This difference in interpretation also influences the exegesis of the Quran, and both groups cite verses from the Quran to support their views. It seems that Ash'arites most frequently refer to verse 23 of Al-Anbiya to argue for God's lack of accountability, while the Adliyya cite verse 165 of An-Nisa to argue for God's accountability. In this paper, after presenting these viewpoints, I have demonstrated that the conclusion of judging this dispute, based on both textual and extra-textual evidence, leans more in favor of the Adliyya. Relying on this evidence, the perspective of the Adliyya and their interpretation of the mentioned verses appear more acceptable.