How many times had I read the ayah?
(أم أمنتم من في السماء أن يخسف بكم الأرض فإذا هي تمور)
“Do you feel secure that He who is over the heavens will not cause the earth to sink with you, then behold, it shakes!” (Surah al-Mulk: 16)
Surah Mulk—one of the most memorized and read over and over, yet obviously not reflected on.
Until now. Tonight as I read it, my heart caught in my throat and I froze, as the images of the Pakistan earthquake vividly flashed before my waking eyes. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable how we take our أمن Amn, or security for granted. I don’t think I ever really understood that ayah until tonight. Perhaps I still don’t understand it, never will understand it, until the type of tragedy that struck Pakistan hits my home and I come to feel it for myself.
I now count myself as incredibly fortunate to have visited Pakistan in December of 2004. I was in Karachi and though it grieves me that I never saw Islamabad and the Northern Territories as they were, I still got to see the land of Pakistan, the land of my birth and forefathers. The trip brought to bear upon my conscience how much luxury passes us by and yet until we actually see the rest of the world, we remain blinded by ingratitude and greed.
I know that it is because of that trip, my first as an adult, that the earthquake and ensuing devastation hurt me so much more than it otherwise would have.
How could it not hurt, when Pakistan even without an earthquake is heartbreaking enough? The barefoot beggar children, crippled homeless, rampant corruption, and filthy tenement districts are heart wrenching to one not inured to such sights of bare poverty and desperation. How much more then could the suffering be when whole cities lay razed to the ground by the awesome might of the One whom all powers pale in front of? Who would cry at night and search in vain for the orphans that already existed when thousands more children were orphaned in a matter of seconds by the earth itself wrenching apart?
Yet in the aftermath of this disaster I am also deeply glad and heartened by what I witnessed during my visit last year because I saw and felt signs of hope in Pakistan. In an era when young women live for fashion, I saw hundreds of women in hijaab, jilbaab, and niqaab in Pakistan’s streets. I saw the learning and enlightenment that is now occurring at the hands of educators like Farhat Hashmi. And as I visited a bookstore by a large Islamic university, I saw throngs of young students of sacred knowledge walk with purpose and conviction to the prayer, their books of knowledge grasped in their hands, their lips silently repeating the adhaan. I heard from women who had laid down their own children in service of the deen whose humble smiles could not betray the fierce determination and resolute they carried as talismans against the dark world.
This is the Pakistan that will not be cowed by this earthquake. This is the Pakistan that will hold her head down in mourning and humility before the power of her Lord yet will then raise it will renewed vigor, with renewed commitment to that which truly matters: devotion and servitude to Allah. In this sense the tragedy emerges as a mercy from Allah, nay a triumph, if only we can respond as we are destined to. For this is our destiny and our blessing as believers—to take our lesson in this world such that we will be spared such ignominy and shame in the hereafter. For Allah says:
(ولنذيقنهم من العذاب الأدنى دون العذاب الأكبر لعلهم يرجعون)
“And indeed we will make them taste of the penalty of this life prior to the supreme punishment, in order that they might repent and return” (Surah as-Sajdah: 21).
