Or do you think that you shall enter the Garden (of bliss)

without such (trials) as came to those who passed away before

you? They encountered suffering and adversity, and were so

shaken in spirit that even the Messenger and those of faith

who were with him cried: “When (will come) the help of

God?” Ah! Verily, the help of God is (always) near!

(Qur’an 2:214)

These verses speak of how Man will be tested and the Qur’an speaks also of punishment in this world as well as the next. “Generations before you We destroyed when they did wrong: their apostles came to them with clear signs, but they would not believe! Thus do We requite those who sin!” (Qur’an 10:13)

I spent many years trying to figure out how one could tell whether an unfortunate incident was a test or a punishment.

At the inception with the moral compass given to us at the time of the Primordial Oath, we are able to distinguish right from wrong and thus tell whether our record has been good, bad or ugly.

In less clear situations, it was Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani’s book Futuhul Ghayb or Revelations of the Unseen that gave me my answer. He says that it is a punishment if the person complains all the time and is bitter, a test if the person tolerates it with patience and for spiritual elevation if the misfortune is borne with cheerfulness.

On August 19, 1999, a powerful earthquake killed 6,000 people in Turkey. The day before, the Turkish government passed a law that would jail any person caught teaching their children the Qur’an within their home. In the town ofGolcuk, buildings that were constructed recently were destroyed but a mosque and its minaret built a century earlier stand unscathed. The building next to it is also standing, for had it fallen, it would have likely damaged the mosque.

In the recent tsunami, the province of Aceh in Indonesia was essentially wiped out. And yet in many affected areas in Indonesia dozens of mosques stand untouched amidst the rubble around them. Secular interpretations say that mosques were better constructed and so escaped damage.

However, according to an article by a non-Muslim journalist, in the town of Sigli, a mosque made of wood stands whilst surrounding structures have been destroyed. Years of grieving and foraging for answers have finally quelled my inner tumult. With the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and now the earthquake in Pakistan, however, there arose confusion about calamities affecting nations as a whole.

“I think America is being punished for killing Iraqi civilians,” said an indignant non-Muslim patient, soon after Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi. I have wondered myself about “the Gulf coast” and “the Gulf War”; is there really a connection, a message?

It is tempting to break down life into bite size pieces. Imam Sayed Hassan Al-Qazwini of Greater Detroit’s Islamic Center of America quashed that thought. He was urging his congregation to donate to the Katrina relief effort. This time a Muslim drew a connection between American misadventures and the wrath of God in the form of Katrina. “Why did the tsunami come in a largely Muslim area then?” asked Imam Qazwini.