If whatever destiny determines is good, what is the Divine purpose in the
calamities and misfortunes befalling people?
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
When the earth is shaken with a mighty shaking,, and the earth
brings forth its burdens, and man says, “What ails it?” Upon that day it shall
tell its tidings for that your Lord has inspired it. (al-Zilzal, 99.1-8)
This sura states explicitly that the earth moves and quakes at a command,
on receiving inspiration. Sometimes it trembles.
[The following comprises the brief answers to seven questions asked in connection
with the recent earthquake.]
First question:
More distressing than the material disaster of this recent earthquake, the
fear and despair coming from its recurrence are destroying the nightly repose
of most of the people in most areas. What is the reason for this terrible torment?
Answer: They were broadcasting obscene songs in a sort of drunken
rapture, some of them sung by girls, by means of the radio, during the tarawih
(supererogatory prayers done after the early night prayer) in the month of Ramadan
in every corner of this blessed center of Islam. This resulted in the torment
of this fear.
Second question
Why is it that, rather than the populations of the countries of unbelievers,
the unhappy Muslims are afflicted with such heavenly blows?
Answer: Major cases and big crimes are tried and judged in
big centers, while the minor ones are decided in small centers. Similarly, for
a significant purpose, the requital for the greater part of the unbelievers’
crimes is postponed to the Last, Supreme Judgment, while the believers are partly
punished in this world for their faults.
Third question
What is the reason for this disaster, which arose from the wrongdoing of
particular individuals, encompassing almost all the people in the area?
Answer: Since the general disaster results from the wrongdoing
of the majority, most of the people must have participated in the actions of
those sinful individuals either actively or by giving them direct or indirect
support or in some other way.
Fourth question
Since this disaster of the earthquake is the result of wrongdoing and atonement
for sins, why were also the innocent and faultless struck by it? How did Divine
Law allow this?
Answer: Since this matter is concerned with Divine Destiny,
I refer you to the Treatise on Destiny and Man’s Free Will, and here only say
this:
Fear a trial, a disorder, which shall surely not smite in particular
the evildoers among you.
The verse means that this world is a field of trial and testing, and a place
of responsibility and struggle. Testing and responsibility require that the
truth in certain matters remains veiled so that, through competition and struggle,
those like Abu Bakr may rise to the highest of the high while others like Abu
Jahl may fall to the lowest of the low. If the innocent remained untouched in
such disasters, the Abu Jahls would submit just like the Abu Bakrs, and the
door of spiritual progress through struggle would be closed and the responsibility
and testing would be meaning-less.
If Divine Wisdom requires that wronged and wrongdoer are together visited
by the same disaster, what then is the share of the wretched and the wronged
in Divine mercy and justice?
For the wronged there is a kind of mercy behind the wrath and anger in the
disaster. For just as the lost property of the innocent becomes like alms given
to the poor and thereby gains permanence, their death in the disaster may be
regarded as a kind of martyrdom and therefore gains them an eternal life of
happiness. For this reason, having gained for them a great and perpetual profit
from a relatively little and temporary difficulty and torment, the earthquake
is, for them, an instance of Divine mercy within wrath.
Fifth question
Why does the All-Just, All-Compassionate, All-Powerful, All-Wise, not give
particular punishments for particular wrongs, but returns them with comprehensive
afflictions? How can this be reconciled with the grace of His Mercy and inclusiveness
of His Power?
Answer: The All-Powerful One of Majesty gives numerous duties
to each element in creation and causes numerous effects to be produced through
each duty. One effect of one of an element’s duties may be ugly or evil or calamitous.
But the further effects of it may be good, beautiful. If the element were prevented
from its duties on account of that one ugly or evil effect, many instances of
good would be prevented also, which means that the same quantity of evil would
be encouraged. Leaving many instances of good undone to avoid a single evil
is extremely disapproved and contrary to wisdom, contrary to reality, and a
fault. However, Divine Power and Wisdom, and Truth are free of fault. Certain
faults constitute a rebellion comprehensive enough to rouse the earth and certain
other elements to anger, and constitute an insulting infringement of the rights
of numerous creatures. For sure, in order to demonstrate the extraordinary ugliness
of that crime, to give to a mighty element, as a part of its universal duty,
the command to reprimand the rebellious is perfect wisdom and justice, and for
the wronged, perfect mercy.
Sixth question
The heedless put it about that the earthquake results from a fault in the
rock strata inside the earth, and consider it as quite simply a chance event,
natural, and without purpose. They do not recognize the non-material causes
and results, so that they might be awakened to the truth and take a lesson from
the event. Does their allegation have any truth in it?
Answer: It has no truth in it, only misguidance. For each year
the earth is dressed in and changes innumerable embroidered well-designed clothes.
Out of those clothes, the fly has count-less members. Take the wing of a single
individual fly, which is only one out of its tens of organs. The intention,
will, purpose, and wisdom manifested on the wing show that—let alone its important
movements and actions—nothing on the earth, which is the cradle, matrix, and
protector of innumerable conscious beings, is neglected and left to itself.
Everything connected with it, whether particular or universal, cannot lie outside
the Divine Will, choice, and purpose. However, as is required by His Wisdom,
the Absolutely Powerful One veils His disposals with apparent causes. When He
wills an earthquake, He may command the movement of the rock strata and stir
them up. Even if the earthquake results from this movement, still this movement
and the quake following it occur by Divine Command and in accordance with His
Wisdom.
To give an example, one man shot another and killed him. If the killer is
entirely disregarded, and only the movement of the bullet taken into consideration,
the rights of the wretched victim would be completely violated, and this would
be utter foolishness and injustice. The All-Powerful One commands, "Move the
rock stratified inside you for definite purposes in order to arouse the heedless
and the rebellious." To disregard the command of the Lord concerning the earth,
which is a docile "official" of the All-Powerful One of Majesty, or a ship or
an airplane of His—to disregard this and to deviate into attributing everything
to "cause and effect" is sheer stupidity.
An addition to the answer of the sixth question: In order to maintain their
way and counter the awakening of the believers and obstruct them, misguided
people and atheists display an impertinence so strange and an indifference so
peculiar that it makes a person regret his humanity. The Creator shakes men
in order to make them give up their awesome and wrongful rebellion which recently
has, to a degree, taken a general form, and to awaken mankind and make them
recognize the universe’s Sovereign, Whom they do not want to recognize. The
Creator of the Heavens and the earth has not shaken man on account of a particular
manifestation of His Lord-ship but as the Ruler and Lord of the whole universe,
the whole of the worlds. He has done so through an overall, general manifestation
throughout the universe and in the universal sphere of His Lordship. He has
struck mankind in the face with widespread and terrible calamities like earthquakes,
storms, floods, and world wars, and demonstrated in most clear fashion His Wisdom,
Power, Justice, Self-Subsistence, Will, and Sovereignty. Although this is the
truth, certain misguided people respond to these universal signs of Divine Lordship
and Divine reprimands with obstinate denial, saying, "Nature does this. It results
from a fault in the rock strata and is just chance. It is the sun’s heat clashing
with electricity, which brought all machinery in America to a standstill for
five hours, and caused the atmosphere in Kastamonu Province of Turkey to turn
red and take on the appearance of a conflagration."
Due to boundless ignorance coming from misguidance and an impertinence
arising from atheism, they do not know that "natural causes" are only so
many occasions and veils. A huge pine tree requires in effect as many
factories and looms as to fill a village to grow from a seed. However, by
attributing the tree only to its tiny seed and certain apparent causes, the
atheist denies the numerous miracles which the Maker displays in the tree,
and reduces to nothing a comprehensive act of the Creator’s Lordship
performed through Will and Wisdom. Sometimes he attaches a scientific name
to a most profound, unknowable and significant reality which has thousands
of purposes in a thousand respects, as though by giving it that name the
whole nature of it had been explained and understood. Whereas it is merely
made commonplace, without purpose, wisdom, and meaning. Also, he attributes
a particular and purposeful act of the Lord to one of the laws of nature,
which are only expressions of one aspect of the Universal Will Encompassing
Choice, and the Universal Sovereignty and they rightly are called Divine
Laws. By doing this and severing the connection between an act of the Lord
(an event) and Divine Will and purpose, he limits it to chance and nature.
This is, in practice, like attributing the victory on the battlefield of an
individual soldier or battalion to military regulations and discipline, and
completely ignoring the soldiers, the commander, the king, and the
government, and their purposeful, intentional actions and practices. Or it
is like this: Like the creation of a fruit-bearing tree from a seed, a wonder-working craftsman produces a hundred
kilos of various foodstuffs and a hundred meters of diverse cloths from a chip
of wood the size of a fingernail. Someone appears, and pointing to the chip
of wood, declares, "These things have come into being out of it 'naturally’
and 'by chance’" thus reducing to nothing the craftsman’s wonderful arts and
skills.
Seventh question
How do we conclude that this event of the earth was aimed at the Muslim
people of this country and why were areas of Erzincan and Izmir affected most?
Answer: The event took place during a hard winter in the dark
of night and severe cold. It was restricted to the region which was disrespectful
of the month of Ramadan, and it continued mildly in order to arouse the neglectful.
These signs, together with some others, show that this earthquake was aimed
at the believers. The earth was shaking them to warn them to perform the prayers
and other acts of worship, and was itself trembling.
There are two reasons why it shook places like Erzincan more than others:
One: Since their faults were few and slight, they were forgiven without
being left to the Supreme Tribunal in the Hereafter.
Two: Taking the opportunity that the strong and truthful defenders
of the faith and protectors of Islam were few or utterly defeated in those places,
the atheists established an effective center of activity. For this reason, punishment
must have been visited on them first.
None save God knows the Unseen.
Glory be to You, we have no knowledge save what You have taught
us; surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
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