Sheikh Yawar Baig on Japan Calamity

As salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullah

You have seen video footage about the devastation in Japan I am sure. So what does it mean for us – for all those who are seeing this on TVs and computers instead of in real life?

1. It means to be compassionate and pray for and do whatever we can, to help those who have been affected in the disaster.
2. It means to take stock of our own lives and see if we are taking the pleasure and anger of Allah into account in our lives and to repair our connection with Him.
3. I am very pained and shocked to see some SMS messages doing the rounds telling us that what happened in Japan is ‘the punishment of Allah for Japan because Japan was anti-Muslim’. 

This is total nonsense for the following reasons:

1. Nobody in the world can say about any natural disaster that it is the punishment of Allah. Nobody is receiving Wahi anymore and anyone making such a statement is speaking without any authority and is displaying both his ignorance as well as his inhumanity. It is disgusting, shameful behavior.
2. Japan is not anti-Muslim at all. There is complete freedom in Japan to worship and practice Islam privately and publicly. There are no laws prohibiting anything to do with the practice of Islam and the Japanese people are friendly and supportive of Muslims. There aren’t too many Muslims in Japan but that is not the issue here.
3. It is totally shameful for Muslims to rejoice upon a calamity striking others and to spread such false rubbish information senselessly.
4. Allah sent us to help people. Not to rejoice at any calamity striking them.

Even if someone else originated that SMS, it came to me from Muslims. Mindless cattle who have only one thumb which they use on the forward button.

Astaghfirullah. May Allah protect us from such Jahiloon.

Calamities are opportunities for Da’awa by rendering help and succor to the affected people.

How can anyone except the brain-dead feel happy at a calamity?

I am writing to advice all of you not to forward every nonsensical message you get on your phones or in your mail without thinking about what has been written. Spreading falsehood is a major sin and to add slander to it is truly foolish and invites the anger of Allah. Please do all in your power to help the poor people who have been affected by this calamity.

What is highly instructive and deserving of great respect and admiration and a reflection of the national character of Japan and the Japanese people is the discipline with which they are facing this calamity.

There is no looting, no plundering and no crime. Compare this to what happened in New Orleans, Pakistan, India (Kashmir) and Indonesia in the recent past when they experienced, floods and earthquakes.

In three out of those four places, the people affected were Muslims. And how did they behave? I think we all know the answers. And we claim to be the ones on right guidance. Claims mean nothing. Action and demonstration means everything. We have much to learn from the Japanese and that has less to do with technology than with character.

The true character of a people is revealed in times of stress. The Japanese nation has shown the world what it is made of. This time of great turmoil and suffering is a proud moment for Japan and the Japanese because of the way they are dealing with these difficult times and how they are behaving in the midst of this disaster.

I ask Allah to help them and to ease their troubles and to protect them from calamities. And knowing them and their character, once the dust is settled, a new Japan will arise from the ashes, greater and better than the one that was destroyed because the Japanese people will put their hearts and souls into rebuilding their great nation.

A nation is great not because of the amount of land it occupies but because of the strength of its character and the depth of its ideology.

Japan has demonstrated both.

Yawar Baig
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