Explanation of the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding what he narrated from Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, that He said

The Shaykh : Let us return to the Holy Hadith, which is This hadith has an apparent, clear indication that every person 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, has forbidden injustice as a favor from Him upon His servants. He has forbidden injustice for Himself, Blessed and Exalted is He, and consequently, He has forbidden 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 purified Himself and elevated Himself above wronging this slave of His, then you, O My servants, are more deserving and more fitting to not wrong one another. This is the first, clear understanding. And there is another understanding that contains some obscurity, which 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 He is capable, if He willed, to wrong the people, and He is capable of wronging them, but He, Blessed and Exalted is He, is purified from wronging them, as He said in many verses with different expressions, among them .

The questioner : .

The Shaykh : Yes, Many verses explicitly state that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, is purified from wronging the people in any way, and Allah is purified from doing anything that 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 imagination that the Lord of the Worlds would wrong some of His creation if He willed, but He does not do that. Why? Because He is Holy, because He is purified from all attributes of deficiency, and among that, He is purified 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 torment 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 not possible for Allah. Here lies the precision in the issue, as I mentioned earlier. We said that Allah is capable of wronging the people, but He does not do it because He is elevated and purified from injustice. But the Asha'irah and others say that injustice is not conceivable for Allah, it cannot be imagined, because injustice, in their opinion, is to dispose of another person's property without his permission. And Allah, Mighty and Majestic, all His creation are His slaves, so if He disposes of 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 that do not relate to the divine power and the divine will. Based on that, they divided and said that it is permissible for Allah, Mighty and Majestic, to torment 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 praised station that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) promised.
If the Lord of the Worlds did this, there would be nothing of injustice, so they say and state it explicitly. But this hadith, this hadith is one of the clearest proofs in refuting them, for it says . The word "I have forbidden injustice" means I am able to wrong, 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 has forbidden 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 the human being, and this is clear by common sense. He is able to take any righteous person and put him in the Fire; He is capable of that, but He is purified from doing it because Allah has all the attributes of perfection. So when He said , then it is not permissible for us at all to utter that statement which some books of the science of kalam say: "It is permissible for Allah to torment the obedient". This is not permissible regarding Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, at all, by the evidence of the verses that explicitly state that Allah does not wrong the people in any way, and by the explicit statement of this hadith which states that our Lord has forbidden injustice for Himself, and therefore He called us not to wrong one another.