The Contribution of Islam to the Solution of World Problems — Page 42
42 indicate tremendous impacts, which would scatter mountains, like flakes of wool. The ‘stripping off of the skin even to the extremities of the body’ would indicate a ‘Hiroshima’ the horrors of which may be multiplied many times. The swiftness with which th e horrors might spread is indicated by its overtaking those who turn back and seek to escape. It is not our object to pile horror upon horror. We desire to stress; however, that a cataclysm of unparalleled severity and destructive power is here clearly foretold. Indeed, in the circumstances of today, this is no longer a matter of speculation. Unles s adequate remedies are devised and put into effect there may be no escape. Is there a remedy? Verse 16 of Chapter 17 of the Quran says: …We never punish until We have sent a Messenger. This means that a calamity on a wide scale, which has the character of punishment for the misdeeds of a people, would not overtake them until they have been warned to make amends, through a divine Messenger. It may be asked, ‘Has there been a warning regar ding the calamity or calamity with which the world is threatened today?’ In the first place, the Quran itself has set out all these warnings, some of which have been quoted above. The Messenger through whom these Warnings were given was the Holy Prophet (sa) of Islam. Now that we are threatened with the literal fulfillment of these warnings, it behooves us to pay sincere and earnest attention to them and to draw the necessary