By Mahjabeen Islam

Coping and understanding natural tragedies

The condolences sounded trite, for all they said was that it was God’s will and that we should be patient. Sure enough, thought I, His will it may be, though that really did nothing to mitigate my suffering. And where, pray, may I buy this commodity called “patience”?

Those earlier years were arduous for it was hard to make sense of so much tragedy. Years of despondent reflection and reading anything that spoke of death, fate, predestination or the afterlife, have finally given me a modicum of acceptance and, I think, understanding.

As though personal tragedies like mine were not enough, we have to face natural disasters and come to terms with the enormity and intensity of all that they leave in their wake.

International relief agencies bemoan 2005 as a year with an unusually high number of natural disasters. The tsunami in South East Asia caused more than 118,000 deaths, Hurricane Katrina killed 1,274, Guatemalan mudslides probably 2,000 and the earthquake in Pakistan resulted in over 100,000 deaths and the toll keeps rising.

For all, victims and witnesses, the questions that surface again and again are “why?”, “why me?” and “why Muslims?” After the tsunami a writer gave a completely secular interpretation of it all being due to tectonic shifts. The question arises: who causes the tectonic plates to shift in the first place?

“Indeed We have created Man into toil and struggle” (Al- Balad 90:4) says the Qur’an and perhaps scarred by my losses, I agree entirely. Life is really one overrated proposition. By Muslim belief the Hereafter is greatly superior to this life. According to one hadith when we get there we will wish that we had asked for all reward in the afterlife rather than this ephemeral one, which will also seem as though it was a mere two days.

I always felt that it is really not the death of the one who dies, but the one who lives on. The dearly departed are released from the toil of this life for a serenity that we cannot imagine. And the survivors are left to struggle with the emotional, financial and logistic ravages wreaked by the death.

In published data about NDEs, or near death experiences, in which people have had cardiac arrests but were resuscitated, the next world is reported to be one of incredible peace and pleasure. The refrain in all these NDE reports is that the subject did not want to return to this world but was told that their time had not yet come so they had to. What gives credibility to these reports is the amazing concordance in all of them describing a tunnel with a light at the end of it, seeing predeceased relatives and experiencing an enveloping tranquility.

“Do they not then earnestly seek to understand the Qur’an or are their hearts locked up?” (Qur’an 47:24) is only one of the many verses in the Qur’an that exhort us to think and reflect on nature and events.

“Not a leaf falls without His knowledge” (Qur’an 6:59) and other verses like “No calamity befalls on the earth or in yourselves but is inscribed in the Book of Decrees (Al-Lauh Al-Mahfuz), before We bring it into existence. Verily, that is easy for God” (Qur’an 57:22) are evidence against events happening randomly or due to tectonic shifts or weather related phenomena.

A Muslim’s belief is complete only after his acknowledgment of God, all the prophets, the angels, the books, the Day of Judgment and qada wa qadar or fate and predestination. Belief in fate and predestination does not in any way release us from responsibility of our actions. The fact that God has full knowledge of all that will be does not reduce us to a robot-like state. Sheikh Fadlallah Haeri explains well in his book Decree and Destiny that there was the advent of the Jabbariyya who believed that all was determined by God and Man was powerless, and the Qaddarriya who believed that nothing was predetermined and Man was able to control his destiny. Sheikh Haeri states that the reality actually lies somewhere between those two extremes. At the time of the Covenant of Alast or the Primordial Oath, in which God asked all souls that would ever be created who their lord was (“alasto birabbakum”), Man was inculcated with the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Islam is also a wholly deeds based religion, with the concept of the scales on the Day of Judgment, good outweighs the bad you go to heaven, the converse and, so sorry, hell for you “and there shall they reside forever” (Qur’an 2:81) but for the grace of God.

Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, “We

believe,” and that they will not be tested?” (Qur’an 29:2)