Al-aslah (the 'most fitting' for mankind)

Al-aslah means "the most suitable or fitting". It is a term used by theologians in a technical sense. The "upholders of the aslah" were a group of the Mu'tazila who held that God does what is best for mankind. The entry notes that nowhere is it stated who composed the group. ¹

Abu '1-Hudhayl held that God does what is best for men. Al-Nazzam introduced a refinement: there is an infinite number of equally good alternatives, any of which God might adopt instead of acting as He does. In this way he avoided the implication that God's power is finite. Others, finding it hard to maintain that the actual world is the best possible, said that God does what is best for men only in religion, namely in sending prophets to guide them. The Mu'tazila differed widely on this point. ¹

The orthodox later used the story of three brothers to show the absurdity of the view. One brother died young and went to Paradise; one grew up, was good, and went to a higher place in Paradise; and one became wicked and went to Hell. If one justifies the first brother's lack of opportunity to reach the highest position by saying that God knew he would become wicked had he grown up, then, on the premises of the upholders of the aslah, it is impossible to explain why God did not cause the third to die young. The later Basran Mu'tazila seem to have made similar criticisms of the Baghdad Mu'tazila. ¹

Divested of the suggestion that a particular course of action was obligatory for God, the concept of aslah, identified with God's wisdom (hikma), passed into orthodox Islam and found literary expression, for instance in the al-Risala al-kamiliyya of Ibn al-Nafis. ¹