Question of: why pain and suffering on earth?

[Muhammad Alshareef]

alhamdulillah.
For those da'wah peoplz out there on the IAW table and elsewhere, this question comes up now and then as a reason why some people do not accept religion (be it Muslim or Christian or whatever).

Here is a good response from Dr.Muzammil Siddiqui, hafidhahullah (http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503544478)

[ibnabeeomar]

jazakallahu khayr! that was an excellent read, and timely! we were just covering this exact point in one of the LOG review sessions on sunday!

[omer_k88]

Jazaka Allah khayr Shaykh! This is an age old riddle atheists love to use...I've never heard this response before...this is one question I've been thinking about too and my reasoning was that if there was no such thing as suffering than would we ever fully appreciate and understand happiness? In other words, if you had never eaten hot spicy desi food you would never appreciate the cooling taste of water! :)

Also if there was no pain and suffering, would we have any reason to even turn to Allah? Would we have the level of sincerity a person has in their duaa the moment before they die? In short, we would never have any motivation to turn and submit to Allah (enter Islam) if there was no suffering? So the simple fact that suffering, pain, death exists--proves that their is a higher power than us!

Anyways here's a story that has explains it better than I did:

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair and his beard cut
as always. He started to have a good conversation with the
barber who attended him. They talked about so many things on
various subjects.
Suddenly, they touched the subject of God. The barber said:
“Look man, I don’t believe that God exists as you say so.”
“Why do you say that?”
Asked the client. Well, it’s so easy; you just have to go out in
the street to realize that God does not exist. Oh, tell me, if God
existed, would there be so many sick people? Would there be
abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither
suffering nor pain. “I can’t think of a God who permits all of
these things.” The client stopped for a moment thinking but he
didn’t want to respond so as to prevent an argument.

The barber finished his job and the client went out of the shop.
Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with a long hair and beard (it seems that it had been a long time since he had his cut and he looked so untidy). Then the client again
entered the barbershop and he said to the barber: “know what? Barbers do not exist.”
“How come they don’t exist?” asked the barber. “Well I am here and I am a barber.” “No!” - the
client exclaimed. “They don’t exist because if they did there would be no people with long hair and
beard like that man who walks in the street.”
“Ah, barbers do exist, what happens is that people do not come to us.” “Exactly!” - Affirmed the
client. “That’s the point. God does exist, what happens is people don’t go to Him and do not look
for Him that’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”

[IWantJannah]

i'd also like to say Jazaikallah khair for bringing the answer to our attention as often this espcially comes up philosophy classes n also students ask this question at the Dawah tables.