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Let us change what is in ourselves to deserve life
Written by
Hossam Badrawi
This is a new dialogue, not in the cafe of those dreaming of tomorrow, but in another cafe.
A question came to the mind of a diligent student at the Faculty of Sharia at Al-Azhar University while he was sitting at the “Ehna wal Aalam” coffee shop in Al-Hussein neighborhood with colleagues and friends from students coming from Sudan, Palestine, Malaysia, Luxor, Pakistan, and his Egyptian lifelong friend who is always rebellious.
The coffee shop is frequented by young and old, sheikhs, wise men, rebels, and extremists.
The young Palestinian was angry and sad about losing his entire family in the last Israeli attack on Deir al-Balah in Gaza, which claimed the lives of more than a thousand children and young people from his village. He said to his friends: I see double standards and the degradation of the principles of humanity, and the turning a blind eye of many Western countries to the cruelty, killing, violence, and injustice that has been inflicted on the Palestinian people for more than half a century. It is something that the mind cannot believe. It is not possible that God will remain silent about this injustice.
The young Sudanese man, who was always smiling, said: By God, my brother, what we are witnessing in Sudan at the hands of the Sudanese is no less cruel than what the Jews are doing in Palestine.
The Pakistani student commented and said: In the opinion of the Egyptians, we are all in the same boat.
Their Malaysian colleague said: I I am sure that our Lord will intervene and prevent injustice, restore justice to Muslims, and grant us victory over the unbelievers. Everyone replied together… Amen
The rebellious Egyptian friend looked at them and commented, saying: I do not believe this nonsense that you are saying… God does not interfere, nor punish the oppressor, nor reward the oppressed in this world
It is true that violence begets violence, and killing and terrorism create killing and terrorism, and things get mixed up, so the perpetrator becomes the victim and the victim becomes a criminal whose family deserves punishment
The absence of hope increases the tendency that calls on people to pray to God to save them from the affliction, and the strange thing is that there are those on the aggressor side who think they are right and pray to the same God to grant them victory over the other
With the passage of time and the renewal of generations, things get mixed up and events overlap, and a new reality is created that new generations of aggressors see as if it were the life they were born into, and the oppressed becomes a terrorist and the plundered becomes a criminal
I monitor the Arab and Islamic calls and supplications for God’s revenge, and I fear that God Almighty will be included in the equation of worldly rewards, and even calling for environmental disasters for the oppressor and interpreting them with divine punitive interpretations.
The young Nubian said enthusiastically: Yes, my brother, God gives respite but does not neglect.
And I trust that God will not leave them. And yes, environmental disasters may be a punishment from God.
Look at distant and recent history and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the kings and presidents who were arrogant and oppressed on earth and slandered, they received an earthly punishment and the people who won over to them had their lands destroyed and were lost in the corners of the earth, expelled…
The Egyptian said:
But there are also opposite models, not everyone who oppressed in life received a worldly punishment and history is full of them.
And the issue must be thought of with an opposite philosophy, that is, that victory in a war is because God supports those who are right, or that victory in a sport is a reward from God is a dependent view.
Victory and defeat, my friends, are linked to effort, preparation, work and training and we should not attribute to God in my opinion any evil that occurs in the world, it may be good and we do not know.
My philosophy is that God only creates good.. and my question extends, are epidemics and diseases injustice to man or a balance for creation, and are fires and floods a means of punishment or are they also a balance that the Earth needs…!!
One of the young men said sharply and with some anger:
This is the first time I hear the expression that disasters are necessary for the balance of nature.!!
The rebellious young man responded by saying: Earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis are natural phenomena, caused by the movement of the Earth’s crust and the Earth’s plates beneath it, due to pressure from the interactions of the burning mass beneath the Earth’s crust, or the expansion and contraction of this crust itself, which causes tremors, fractures and cracks. Yes…it is a balance for the Earth and a blessing from the Creator for the Earth to remain alive, otherwise it would explode with everything in it.
The idea that this is related to the punishment of humans needs to be reconsidered.
Another young man said: God hears, responds and hastens to save the oppressed because He is a just God.
What Israel and America are doing will bring them vengeance and punishment. I also see that whoever wants to prevent God’s blessings of water in Ethiopia to seize it for his people will face an unexpected blow, not military, but beyond our expectations and understanding. The idea of controlling the sources of livelihood that God created and designed is something that shows contempt for the Creator, so we also await the justice of heaven.
A man who seemed serious intervened and introduced himself as a physics professor and said: Allow me to intervene in the discussion. Have you thought about why when an earthquake occurs in Japan with a magnitude exceeding 6 degrees, for example, it injures a few Japanese, while thousands of Pakistanis die when an earthquake of the same magnitude occurs there? It is science, preparation and prediction, not wishful thinking.
Do not underestimate the scientific and human achievements, and do not exploit the occurrence of disasters as an entry point for populist polarizations that address dependent tendencies.
My children, this world is not a place of punishment, as Allah says in the Quran, and you are clearly studying at Al-Azhar: {And if Allah were to punish people for what they have earned, He would not leave a single creature on the surface of the earth, but He gives them respite for a specified term.} Surah Fatir, verse 45
The relationship between hurricanes and storms and Allah’s wrath is like the relationship between gentle breezes and Allah’s pleasure. Each of the hurricanes and gentle breezes affects the good and the bad, animals and plants. Was the drought that struck the Muslims in the year of (Al-Ramada) during the reign of Omar bin Al-Khattab, Allah’s wrath against the Companions and Followers? And does this drought affect certain societies and not others?
Is victory in wars a divine will or a scientific effort and human organization?
Is the failure to exploit the resources of the richest region in the world in the Middle East and Africa, or the governance of its country’s administration despite its wealth, and its remaining at the tail end of modern civilization, a human act or a divine command…
God has given us His bounties, our seas are full of food, our lands are floating on sources of energy and wealth, and our climates allow us to exploit the energy of the sun and wind, and, and, and, and yet we are oppressed, exploited and poor peoples. Is this God’s will or our will??!!!! Is it right for us to cry over injustice and defeat without any scientific effort we exert and a civilizational superiority we strive for!
A person may sense, in his contemplation of human and natural disasters, some spiritual meanings that help him build a deeper view of life, that comprehends its pain and suffering as well as its beauty and magnificence. But the cosmic system and human creation created by the Creator, and the movement of civilizational development are not subject to religious emotions and concepts. Everyone is subject to one law, and God Almighty says: “If you suffer, they also suffer as you suffer, and you hope from God what they do not hope for.” {Surat An-Nisa, verse 105}
– It seems that the discussion attracted the attention of most of those sitting in the coffee shop,
One commented, identifying himself as a history student, and said: During the Black Death (the Great Death), which swept across Europe in 1347, and caused the death of no less than a third of the continent’s population, the church’s discourse tended to interpret the disaster as divine punishment for sins and transgressions, which was an exploitation of the event to achieve the goal of selling indulgences.
Another man who was watching and listening to the dialogue at the table next to them smiled after their voices rose, and he seemed to be a seasoned politician and said: We should not also forget the victims and destruction left behind by dictatorial regimes, which are clearly represented by authoritarian political, religious, and secular regimes, which may exceed what It is caused by storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other things we call natural disasters, although the occupation and oppression of peoples is caused by our own people, not by our enemies.
Another university professor who was listening and enjoying joined the conversation and said: The laws of nature that do not differentiate between oppressor and oppressed, God created them and made them work automatically, so they do not differentiate between one belief and another, believer and infidel…
That the natural divine physics, including the formation of the human mind and the diversity of its activities, which enables it to contemplate the laws of the universe, research, invent, anticipate mutations and surprises, and modify equations, and being prepared with science and knowledge is what saves us from injustice, not supplication and crying. Who saves us from the injustice of others is the application of justice among us, is not to wrong our citizens by managing our people well and I believe “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” Everyone was silent and looked at each other, each of them thinking about this dialogue and learning from it…
