Question: If Allahu Taala did not create the nafs, then people would have been free from being deceived. Nobody would have committed bad deeds and all would have gone to Paradise. Would it not be better?
Answer: Allahu Taala’s attributes of mercy and rage occur in all creatures and in all things in this world. While water is required for people, animals and plants to live, for cleansing, for preparing food and making medicine; it also causes thousands of people to drown in the seas and floods demolish homes. Drinking cold water causes one to become ill. As fire is necessary for cooking bread and other foods, and for keeping warm in the winter; fire also burns those things that fall into it. Although electricity is useful in many aspects, it can also cause fire and when it electrocutes a person it causes immediate death. Though every medicine is a cure for a certain ailment, excessive doses are harmful. Everything is like this. Nafs are also like this, having both beneficial and harmful sides. The creation of the nafs is intended for man’s living, multiplying, and working in the world, and for their earning thawab (reward promised and will be given in the next world by Allahu Taala as a recompense for the doing and saying of what He likes) of Jihad (striving or struggling to propagate [Ahl as-Sunna] Islam) for the Hereafter. Allahu Taala created the nafs for many such beneficial reasons. However, the nafs does not become satiated in eating and sexual pleasures. On the other hand, pitying all men, He created aql (reason, wisdom) in them. In addition, He sent commandments and prohibitions so that everyone could stop following their nafs, control it, avoid its harms, and thereby live in comfort
