Iblīs, Job, and the Problem of Evil

The Book of Job represents a kind of internal critique of the Deuteronomistic theology that dominates most of the rest of the Hebrew biblical canon. Yet its place in the canon is very marginal, as it does not deal with God’s covenant with Israel and has even been taken by many readers since ancient times as a work of fiction. In the Qur’ān, as with other biblical stories that present moral ambiguities, Job’s story is significantly altered and is, if anything, even more marginal than in the Hebrew Bible. This paper argues, however, that the Qur’ān echoes Job’s critique and in fact places it at the heart of the creation narrative, in the mouth of Iblīs. Like Job’s, Iblīs’s critique is tacitly conceded, but the effect is to reinforce rather than destabilize the Qur’ān’s theology.