Re: Quake punishment for ‘immoral activities’: Farhat Hashmi
assalamu 'alaikum
Please read this instead of the above article:
(Reflections on earthquakes)
© Abdal-Hakim Murad
***modified and abridged from the original article
Allah has names of Beauty: the Compassionate, the Merciful, the
Gentle, and many others. But He also has Names of Rigour: the
Overwhelming, the Just, the Avenger. The world in which we live
exists as the interaction and the manifestation of all of the divine
attributes. Hence it is a place of ease and of hardship, of joy and
of sorrow. It has to be this way: a world in which there was only
ease could not be a place in which we can discover ourselves to be
true human beings. It is only by experiencing hardship, and loss,
and bereavement, and disease, that we rise above our egos, and show
that we can live for others, and for principles, rather than only
for ourselves.
A feature of this world, this dunya, is therefore the existence of
catastrophe. Sometimes this catastrophe takes the form of a test: in
which case it may be a gift. At other times, however, it may take
the form of a punishment. The dunya is, as the athar states, `the
prison of the believer, and the paradise of the kafir.'
It is of God's mercy, and a proof of His providence, that any life
can exist at all. Were our planet to be a little further from the
sun, or a little closer, it would be uninhabitable. Were the sun's
rays to be of a slightly different composition, they would be
lethal. Were our planet a little bit smaller, it could not retain
the atmosphere necessary to preserve life. If it were bigger, the
force of gravity would ensure that the atmosphere would include not
only oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, but also heavier,
poisonous gases, like ammonia. The small size of the planet allows
these gases to escape.
It's a good deal; and how could one expect anything else from the
Lord of the Worlds? All we have to do is to thank Him; and in our
own, Islamic covenant, we have a formal way of doing this five times
a day. When we fail to do this, our hearts are dirtied, we are in a
state of imbalance, and we open ourselves up to calamity.
`Never does sexual immorality appear among a people, to the extent
that they make it public, without there appearing amongst them
plagues and agonies unknown to their forefathers.' (Imam Malik)
It is easy to see AIDS as an outright punishment for consuming drugs
or for sex outside marriage: that is too crude a view. Instead, the
hadith indicates that the Sunna is a protection for our kind, which
preserves us from breakdowns in the body's defence systems. And any
student of medicine will be aware of the extraordinary complexity of
the human immune system: the titanic battles fought between
pathogens and antibodies throughout our lives, in every cell of our
bodies. To the extent that we deny the Sunna, we unbalance that
system, and catastrophe follows. Hence 'innocent' victims are not
spared from this unbalance.
As Muslims we would insist that there is something deeper at work
when viewing calamities. Nothing occurs in the world, not even a
leaf dropping from a tree, that Allah is not fully aware of, and
that He has not decreed. And His decrees have meaning.
What was it that that man of the Salaf said?
`Know that when one of Allah's servants sins against Him, He deals
with him leniently. Should he sin again, He conceals this for him.
But should he don its garments, then Allah conceives against him
such wrath as the very heavens and the earth could not compass,
neither the mountains, the trees, nor the animals; what man could
then withstand such wrath?'
Hence, in repeated sinning we incur the wrath of God.
The earthquake was a test, no doubt. It is too crude a view to
regard a tragedy such as this earthquake as a straightforward divine
punishment. The Islamic view is more subtle. We believe that the
overwhelming forces of nature are only kept in check by Allah.
Without His providence, our pathetic bodies would survive not for
one instant amid the titanic powers of the universe.
But when we forget His providence, we become vulnerable.
Abu Hurayra radiya'Llahu anhu said:
The Prophet, salla'Llahu alayhi wa-sallam said: `The Hour shall not
come until knowledge is taken away, and earthquakes become common,
and time is always too short, and trials appear, and killing is
widespread, and until wealth becomes so abundant that it is
superfluous.' (Bukhari)
But the Lord is merciful.
His mercy is expressed, despite our waywardness, in so many ways.
There is the hadith, for instance, that states that whoever dies
tahta al-radm, under fallen masonry, is a shaheed, a martyr. So
those who have died so horribly in Pakistan and India can be
considered shuhada. Many ulema there have confirmed this judgement.
We need to find shelter in the Divine protection. And the road back
to that place is called tawba (repentance). For the surviving
people, and for the world. We need to repent of our frenzied
enthusiasm for the mechanical pleasures of today's world. Watching
the disgusting exhibitions of human egos on television while our
neighbours are lonely is not the way of Muslims. A hadith tells us
that the Muslim is not he who sleeps well-fed while his neighbour is
hungry.
We ask Allah subhanahu ta`ala to grant us the gift of tawba, for us
here, and for all Muslims.
May He forgive us our weaknesses and our secret faults, and our
laziness in serving Him.
May He grant us love and brotherhood for one another, and give us
the blessing of common action against what threatens us all.
May He empty our hearts of suspicion and pride, and of the love of
dispute, and unite us in the service of Islam and the Muslims.