Allah, the Best of Schemers
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The Quran repeatedly applies the verb makara — to scheme, plot, deceive — to Allah: “they schemed, and Allah schemed; and Allah is the best of schemers (khayru al-makirin)” (Quran 3:54; cf. 8:30; 7:99: “do they feel secure from the scheme of Allah? None feels secure from the scheme of Allah except the losing people”; 4:142: the hypocrites “seek to deceive Allah, but He is deceiving them”). In every other Quranic usage, makr is morally negative — the plotting of the wicked. A deity who out-schemes schemers, and from whose scheming even believers may not feel secure (7:99), generates an internal epistemological problem: a revelation from a God whose self-description includes supreme deception cannot guarantee that the revelation itself is not part of a scheme.
Common Muslim Responses
Theologians answer that makr predicated of Allah is requital-in-kind — a rhetorical device (mushakala) in which the punishment is named after the crime: Allah “schemes” only against schemers, justly turning their plots upon them; His attribute is best because His purposes are righteous. Translations such as “planner” reflect this.
Counter-Rebuttal
Critics note that 7:99 extends the warning to everyone (“none feels secure… except the losers”), beyond the plotters of 3:54, and that 4:142’s active deception of hypocrites — letting them believe falsely until the Day — is deception in the ordinary sense, however just. The contrast with the Bible’s “God is not a man, that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19) and “it is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18) frames the apologetic exchange, but the internal point needs no Bible: a system whose God deceives whom He wills and leads astray whom He wills (14:4; 74:31) cannot, from inside itself, certify its own revelation.