The Essence of Islam – Volume V — Page 145
Earthquakes and Wars 145 cause of chastisement for them. This Hadith indicates that the Promised Messiah will be vehemently opposed, and consequently a great many people shall die in the country, the most severe earthquakes shall take place, and peace shall disappear altogether. It would otherwise be irrational to think that pious and righteous people should be unduly subjected to various punishments. This is the reason why in earlier ages also ignorant people considered every Prophet to be a bearer of misfortune and blamed him for what were actually the consequences of their own misdeeds. The truth is that it is not the Prophet who brings punishment, rather the Prophet comes as a final warning when the people have become deserving of punishment and have thus created the necessity for his advent. Severe punishment never comes until a. Prophet has been sent, as God says in the Holy Quran: وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِينَ حَتَّى نَبْعَثَ رَسُوْلًا 4. Why then is it that while the plague is devouring the country on the one hand, at the same time there is no respite from terrifying earthquakes? O, heedless ones! look around, perchance God has raised a Prophet among you and you have rejected him. It is already the twenty-fourth year of the Hijrah century. Why then, without the advent of a Prophet, are you being afflicted with this calamity which takes away your friends and loved ones each year and brings sorrow to 43 We never punish until We have sent a Messenger. ―Bani-Isrā'il, 17:16 [Publisher]