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Allah Is A Ferocious Being- An Appeal To Mankind
By Mohammad Asghar
I have no words to express myself for the loss of a massive number of human lives to the tsunami, which originated in the Indian Ocean, a few days ago. I also have no words to convey my sympathy to those who have survived its destructive power, but lost their loved ones as well as all they had in their life. I am, however, confident that the suffering masses of the affected countries will bear their losses with strength and braveness, for these are the two major qualities that have been sustaining humans on earth for thousands and thousands of years.
Uttering of soothing words is, though, easy enough for anyone, but the fact of the matter is that I myself am having a difficult time with the watching of all the pictures of death and destructions that the electronic medias of the United States have been flashing across my television screen. Those pictures make me sick and sad; they also make me cry. When these pictures can effect a person who lives thousands of miles away from the places of death and destructions, it should not be difficult for anyone to realize how difficult it is for the very people who once faced death and are now standing on the very ground, which would have become their graveyards, had they, too, been killed by the destructive tides of the fearsome tsunami. It is simply mind-boggling.
I myself have once faced death at nature’s hand. I have seen with my own eyes human corpses and animal carcasses floating together in ponds and rivers. I have seen how the survivors from nature’s fury ran helter and skelter in search of their dear and beloved ones. I saw how they screamed and wept, with their hands raised towards the heavens, hoping to get direction from the One who lives in one of them to where their lost ones could be found. I have also seen the heart-wrenching cries of mothers over their infants’ dead bodies.
I have also seen, on my television screen, how helpless humans can become when their own kind decides to kill them mercilessly. The destruction of the Twin Towers of New York is what I am referring to here. In their desperate bids to save themselves from the inferno of death, which was caused by the impact of the two aero-planes crashed into the Towers by the so-called humans, many brought death to themselves by jumping out of their 18th or 19th floor offices. The scream of those, who were desperately trying to escape the carnage, still rings in my ears.
Despite the fact that mankind suffered from one of their blackest moments over three years ago, yet my mind has not been able to find answers to some of the vexing questions that related to the events of 9/11 till today. Those questions are: How women, infants, children, old and sick, who were abroad those two ill-fated planes, must have felt when they realized that their lives were going to be taken away from them in a few moments’ time? How they must have reacted, when the planes were about to hit the Towers? Did they scream in extreme fear? How they looked when they were screaming? Did their eyes pop up? Did some of them die of heart failures? And how the innocent children must have clung to their mothers’ chests after being overtaken by the fear of the commotion they found themselves in, before their soft and delicate bodies became part of the burned- down and collapsed debris of the Towers?
While I was in the process of erasing out all the unanswered questions from my mind, the deaths and destructions wrought by the tsunami plunged me once again into a severe agony. I began, once again, to ask myself: Why innocent infants and children as well as their innocent parents should die before their time, and in violent ways? If not nature, then who is responsible for their deaths?
If all the humans, and all the aspects of nature are subject to strict and constant oversights by a celestial deity, then how are they able to play havocs to mankind, their possessions and to their surroundings?
My Muslim background took me back to the teachings of the Quran. According to it, no human being, animal and fauna or flora can either breathe or die without Allah’s permission, nor can anything happen to our earth and to all other things it contains without His specific Order. He destroys those who refuse to worship Him, or disobey His Orders. He has destroyed nations after nations in the past; He is inflicting painful deaths on humans and animals now, and would continue to do so in future as well. While punishing the sinners and the disobedient folks, He does not care a whit, if the innocents also get crushed under the weight of His uncontrollable rage. This He has been doing all the time; the events of 9/11, through which He caused a few humans to unleash a punishment of unimaginable proportion on a multitude of their innocent fellow-beings were one; the chain of destructions caused by the tsunami, at His Order, to human life and property is the latest for all of us to remember.
About the natural calamities, Allah claims, in an unequivocal term, the following:
6:65: “Say: “He hath power to send calamities on you, from above and below, or to cover you with confusion in party strife giving you a taste of mutual vengeance- each from the other.” See how We explain the Signs by various (symbols), that they may understand.”
The question is: If Allah Or God is as dreadful, brutal, merciless and insanely egoistic as He says He is, does He deserve our praise in any form and shape? Should the survivors of the tsunami thank Him for the violent deaths their loved ones have suffered at His hand? Should they be grateful to Him for making them companionless and also for making them penniless and destitute?
History tells us that Genghis Khan and Hallagu etc. never gave life to those they killed. They never rebuilt what they had destroyed at the time of subjecting their victims to their wraths. Their victims rebuilt their lives through their own efforts.
Taking lessons from human’s past history, the victims of the tsunami must rebuild their lives with their own efforts. They will get no help from the deities many of them might have been praying to in their life.
Only other humans can render them the help they would need to sustain themselves now and in future.
I appeal to all the victims of the tsunami to rely solely upon their own strength and resilience for embarking again on the journey of their lives. They should not waste their time and energy on looking to the heavens for help; for it never came from there either in the past, nor is it going to come to them this time or in future.
In the name of humanity, I also appeal to all the lucky people of the world to come to the aid of their misfortunate and suffering brothers and sisters with all the help they can muster and salvage them from the wreckage of destruction. We owe a duty to our own conscience. We can sleep in peace, only if we stand up with our helping hands extended to the suffering masses. Failure to do so will always prick our conscience.
So, let us all come out for extricating the victims of the tsunami out of their extreme crisis, even if they belong to the faiths we believe are frivolous. Let us all do our human duty; in it lies our mental peace and tranquility. Let us not live with our conscience laden with guilt. Let us live with the satisfaction that helping others in distress brings to us. Satisfaction is the prize we should always aspire to win in our lives; so let us win it without any hesitation or wastage of time.
Time is of the essence for the victims; so let us not procrastinate. We should not let them suffer, when we can render our help to them immediately. Therefore, let us put ourselves beside them and do everything possible for mitigating their sufferings right now.
December 28, 2004