Explanation of his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding what he narrated from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) that He said: (O My servants, I have forbidden injustice for Myself

The Shaykh : Let us return to the Holy Hadith, which is: .
This hadith has an apparent, clear indication that everyone who hears this hadith shares in knowing, and it has a somewhat hidden indication that only those with knowledge and understanding notice. As for the first issue, it is that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) forbade injustice as a favor from Him upon His servants; He forbade injustice for Himself (Blessed and Exalted is He), and consequently forbade it for humans, commanding them not to wrong one another. If Allah (Mighty and Majestic), who is the Owner of everything and the Creator of everything, has transcended and elevated Himself above wronging this slave of His, then you, O My servants, are more deserving and more fitting to not have some of you wronging others. This is the first, clear understanding.
There is another understanding that contains some obscurity, and it relates to the science of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), which they call the science of kalam. The meaning of this hadith is: ... So the meaning of His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) in this hadith is: ; that is, He is capable of wronging people if He wills; He is capable of wronging them, but He (Blessed and Exalted is He) is transcendent from wronging them, as He said in many verses with different phrasings, including: "the people" .

The questioner : .

The Shaykh, yes, indeed, , many verses explicitly state that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is transcendent from wronging people in any way. The transcendence of Allah from doing something means that with His vast power, He is capable of doing it, but He does not do it, because He has the attributes of perfection. So Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is capable of injustice; it is conceivable in the mind and intellect that the Lord of the worlds would wrong some of His creation if He wills, but He does not do that. Why? Because He is Holy, because He is transcendent from all attributes of deficiency, and among them is being transcendent from injustice. So this hadith came to confirm this meaning, saying: .
Along with this hadith, in the books of kalam, such as the book "Al-Jawharah" and its explanations and marginal notes, it is explicitly stated that if Allah (Mighty and Majestic) were to punish all the people, including Muhammad (peace be upon him), and put him in the Fire, he would not be unjust. Why do they say this? Because they believe that injustice is impossible with regard to Allah. Here lies the precision in the issue, as I mentioned earlier. We said: Allah is capable of wronging people, but He does not do so, because He is elevated and transcendent from injustice. As for the Asha'irah and others, they say that injustice is not conceivable with regard to Allah; it cannot be imagined. What is injustice in their opinion? It is to act upon the property of another without his permission. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic), all His creation are His slaves. So if He acts upon them in any way, it is not injustice to them. Therefore, they do not say that Allah is capable of injustice but does not do it; rather, this injustice is among the impossibilities to which divine power and divine will do not relate. Based on this, they elaborated and said: "It is permissible for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to punish the obedient and reward the disobedient." They said: It is permissible for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to put Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) in the lowest of the low, in the place of Iblis, and conversely, to raise Iblis to the highest degree in Paradise and give him the Praiseworthy Station that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was promised. If the Lord of the worlds did this, there would be no injustice.
This is what they say and explicitly state, but this hadith is one of the clearest proofs in refuting them. It says: . The word "I have forbidden injustice" means I am able to commit injustice, but I have forbidden it for Myself. If a person says, "I have forbidden smoking for myself," it does not mean that he is incapable of smoking and therefore forbade it for himself; this is a statement that no sane person would make. So likewise, the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) here: means that Allah (Mighty and Majestic), in terms of His power, is able to wrong a human being, and this is self-evident. He is able to take any righteous person and put him in the Fire; He is capable of that, but He is transcendent from doing it, because Allah has all the attributes of perfection. So when He said: , it is not permissible for us, ever, to utter that statement which some books of the science of kalam say: "It is permissible for Allah to punish the obedient!" This is not permissible with regard to Him (Blessed and Exalted is He), ever, by virtue of the verses that explicitly state that Allah does not wrong people in any way, and by the explicit statement of this hadith which explicitly states that our Lord has forbidden injustice for Himself; and therefore He called us not to have some of us wronging others.