A Comparative Study of Mu'tazilite, Ash'arite, and Twelver Shia Quran Interpreters on Affliction and its Relation to the Divine Justice: Evidence from the Tafsir-Oriented Views of Qazi Abd al-Jabbar, Ghazzali, and Fayz Kashani

 The relation of afflictions and the Divine justice has since been a serious controversy among Muslim thinkers. The present paper attempts to answer this challenge. To do so, this paper tackles their Quranic views so as to get a more comprehensive outlook of their strengths and weaknesses. In a descriptive-analytical study, first their initial criteria are derived, based on their Quranic outlooks, for they have many criteria in common. As for their differences, concerning the Divine justice, it is found out that there is little agreement among the views of the Mu'tazilites and Ash'arites on the Divine justice and afflictions, and that as men get afflicted based on a Divine will, they commit some crimes and receive their punishments in proportion to their own misconducts, a fact which is the mere justice. In other words, it has been determined that what is in line with the human nature gets activated through affliction and this is the very sense of the Divine justice.