Malfuzat – Volume I — Page 251
Malfuzat - Volume I 251 emptied. The infected are to be kept in quarantine and the healthy are to be kept separate. Such people must be kept in a place where there is proper ventilation, no low-ground water source and ample way of passage. There should be a graveyard adjoining such places so that the dead may be buried without delay, so that their offensive remains do not further contaminate the environs. This is such an extreme calamity that people in Bombay, Pune and other places have stumbled. Although the government has intended goodwill—and nothing but goodwill-in undertaking these measures, it is regrettable and immensely unfortunate that the people have deemed them to be evil in nature. What is as- tonishing and remarkable is that these preventative measures implemented by the government are not self-invented. Greek physicians have agreed that if there is an outbreak of plague in a certain household, this claims the entire home; rather, it exterminates the entire city, nay the entire country. These physicians have given many examples which demonstrate that this horrific epidemic-known as the plague-did not rest until it tore down cities, transforming them into desolate wastelands. Most people are unaware. It saddens me that despite the ferocious spread of this terrible epidemic and its threat to destroy a large segment of the country, I observe that the people are not consumed by a grief which should move them to become engaged in repentance and seeking forgiveness. I find that the people do not weep and wail before God Almighty, nor do they take it upon themselves to observe their Prayers, instead they indulge in transgression and im- morality. The plague has the nature of flying from one place to another swiftly in the likeness of a bird. The movement of this epidemic is not systematic so that it should move from one place to the next in stages, but rather it will cover a dis- tance of approximately 400 or even 800 miles sporadically and suddenly. Now just give thought to the considerable distance between Bombay and Jalandhar. What logical explanation can one give for its sudden movement to Jalandhar. In short, no one can make any predictions about its next target. Today one is healthy and safe, but who knows what will happen tomorrow? This is a dangerous epidemic and its bouts last for extended periods of time. On occasions, it will last for even sixty years at a time and this is a known and established fact. It is not like cholera, which breaks out from mid-July to mid-September and comes to an end within twenty to twenty-five days. Physicians have said that ta'un, which is the Arabic word for plague, means 'that which kills with the spear. ' Grammatically, the word ta'un in Arabic is the superlative form of the word