Whisper 1 : Are Disasters Divine Punishment?

What does (or should) one feel when he/she watches on television gruesome pictures of an earthquake or volcano survivors mourning their loved ones ? Many of us watch such scenes while eating or chatting with family or friends. The philosophers amongst us wonder why these things happen in the first place. The religious-minded would probably say it’s a divine punishment.

I once heard on BBC World (TV) an Indonesian Tsunami survivor say something like, "I believe it’s God’s punishment for people’s wrongdoing." This young man explained (in a program entirely devoted to him) that while he was fighting against the waves and hunger and all sorts of danger at sea for many days, he vowed that if God saved him from this ordeal he would never sin again. It appears that God answered his prayers ; he was saved by a ship’s crew, and later on someone helped him enroll in a university in Malaysia.

I heard and read a lot of comments suggesting that such calamities are indeed divine punishments for people for their sins. To me, that may be just one of four probable reasons. Although I believe, as a Muslim, that God does punish people for their wrongdoing, I just can’t imagine that all the victims (be they dead or survivors) of Tsunami, the recent Burma cyclone or the last earthquake in China committed such sins that the only way God could have punished them was a Tsunami or a cyclone or an earthquake. For one thing, thousands of little children who either died in these catastrophes or became orphans cannot possibly be imagined to have committed such deadly sins. Even for grown-ups, you just can’t tell for sure who was punished from who wasn’t. That’s beyond anybody’s knowledge. (The Hadith ° suggests that a whole population –including the good people– could be destroyed if there were too much evil, and that –on the Day of Judgement– each will be judged according to the intent he/she had at the moment of his/her death.)

So what could be other possible reasons ?


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° Zaynab bint Jahsh said, "O Messenger of Allaah, will we be destroyed even though there are righteous people among us?" He said, "Yes, if evil becomes widespread." (Reported by al-Bukhaari, 6/381, Muslim, 18/2)


Innocent Whispers