The issues based on justice and the justice of God has great importance in Islamic traditions. We learn that God’s justice is an issue which everyone believes and has been included as an integral part of human analytical discernment.

Amirul Mumineen is recorded to have said in Nahjul Balagha:

He is far above doing injustice to His subjects. He uses justice to deal with His creations and is honest in His pronouncement. (1)

In Another instance the Imam says:

Just is he who has taken the path of justice and is such a judge who separates the evil from the good. (2)

In yet another instance the Imam says:

His beneficence is far elevated so he overlooks the sins of His servants and His decrees are based on justice. (3)

We read a very famous tradition of the holy Messenger that says:

All the heavens and the earth exist because of justice. (4)

Allama Majlisi quotes Imam Jafar Sadiq about God’s attribute in the chapter on Tawhid in Behar-ol-Anwar:

God is the light which has no darkness and injustice. He is the truth which has no falsehood, He is the judge with whom there is no scope for injustice and is such a Truth that cannot be approached by lies or sins. (5)

Sahih Tirmizi says:

He is the God who is the personification of justice and benevolence. (6)

Sahih Bukhari in the book of Khamas says that the Messenger replied to the person who doubted his justice by saying:

If God and His Messenger are not just then who be justice and honest? (7)

In the 45th prayer of Sahifa Sajjadia Imam Ali bin Hussein invokes God by saying:

Your overlooking our sins is an obligation for us and the punishment you give is justice.

There are many traditions in the annals of the Ahle Sunnah and the Shias that refute compulsion and praise God’s forgiveness. There are many examples from which we learn the justice of God is essentially accepted by all and there are many arguments based on it. In one such Hadith we learn that one of the companions of Imam Jafar Sadiq asked him:

Does God compel His servants to do something?

The Imam answered:

God is far elevated to compel His subject to do anything and then punish him for it. (8)

In one of the Hadith of the Holy Messenger recorded in Masnad Ahmed Ibn Hambal we read:

If a person sins and is punished in this life then he will not be punished in the hereafter. God is far elevated and just to punish a person twice (9)

A Hadith of Imam Ali Bin Musa Reza tells us that when a companion asked him:

God has delegated His work to His servants

The Imam said:

God is far more powerful to do that (He give His work to His servants and stay aloof)

The man asked:

Have they been compelled to do the deeds?’

The Imam said:

God is all powerful and most just to such a thing (10)

We conclude this discussion with the words from the prayer that we read at the end of our daily prayers taught to us by the infallible Imams:

God I know that you do not hurry in your punishment, and there is no injustice in your decrees. Hasty is the one who is afraid to lose the moment; unjust is he who is weak. O God! You are far elevated than all others. (11)

There are many Hadith and traditions about this issue we have only given you an example from them.

1. Nahjul Balagha Sermon 185 page 428

2. Nahjul Balagha Sermon 214

3. Nahjul Balagha Sermon 191

4. Tafsir Safi Verse 9 of Surah Rahman.

5. Behar-ol-Anwar vol. f3 page 306 Hadith 44

6. Al Mojam al Feris Barai Hadith Nabavi vol. 4f page 155

7. -------------------------do------------------------ vol.4 page 152

8. Behar-ol-Anwar vol.5. page 51 Hadith 83

9. Masnad Ahmad Hambal vol.1 page 99 Beirut

10. Usul Kafi vol. 1 page 157 Hadith 3

11. Misbah-ol-Motehjad by Shaykh Toosi page 173