How to stop the COVID-19 pandemic

Ordinarily, Muslims need not be disturbed by pandemics. Going by a prophetic tradition, even the current COVID-19 pandemic could be a mercy to them. Muslim victims who die in it are rewarded with martyrdom just as those that suffer are rewarded with forgiveness. Even those that surrendered to the divine will, in body and in […]

Ordinarily, Muslims need not be disturbed by pandemics. Going by a prophetic tradition, even the current COVID-19 pandemic could be a mercy to them. Muslim victims who die in it are rewarded with martyrdom just as those that suffer are rewarded with forgiveness. Even those that surrendered to the divine will, in body and in spirit, affirming that they came from Allah and to Him they shall return share in the mercies bestowed on those that die or suffer.

Nowadays, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are both guilty of promoting injustice and the open violation of Allah’s injunctions; the two causes of punitive epidemics. And the scriptures have forewarned us, in detailed terms, to expect a preponderance of natural disasters; droughts, earthquakes, floods and epidemics from previously unknown diseases whenever disbelief, open promiscuity and injustice corrupts the earth.

Therefore, from the Islamic perspective, the current coronavirus pandemic is either a divine warning or punitive reminder or both.

On the one hand, Muslims have betrayed their religion, their Qur’an and their pledge to Allah for following the atheist footsteps. They chant all the divine wisdom in the Qur’an beautifully and loudly but leave its teachings confined to the paper on which it is written. In their modern thinking, the teachings in the Holy Book have no place in political, economic and social life. Also, in careless neglect of Allah’s purpose, they have allowed and tolerated an unjust socio-political world order that undermines Islamic values, persecutes its followers and sheds their innocent blood. In addition, they watch complacently as a powerful minority cornered the economic resources of the world, distributing them in such an unfair manner that enslaves a large majority of mankind to perpetual abject poverty.

So, Muslims, on the one hand, need to be reminded that it is to guide themselves and the entire human race away from the darkness of disbelief, injustice and sin that the Almighty Allah made them the Chosen Nation and gave them His Book. He expects them, as custodians of His Book, to lead mankind by example, to His light, and to liberate them both in this life and the hereafter. The more they fail in discharging this obligation the more readily He disowns them, equating them with the unbelievers.

On the other hand, non-Muslims too, especially those who control the levers of global power need to be reminded that if they would not deliver the trusts of global leadership with justice, then they should as well forfeit some of His favours.

And now it appears that He has passed, on us all, an imprisonment sentence, considering the similar conditions we now share with prisoners on account of a coronavirus unknown until recently.

Like prisoners confined to their cells, we too can neither move about nor carry out our normal activities.

Cities, like nations, have closed their borders as communities, neighbours and individuals are compelled to distance themselves from one another. Even family members who share the same residence are supposed to keep away from one another. In fact, for maximum protection from either contracting the virus or infecting another person, every individual ought to, ideally, seclude himself. Clearly, this is imprisonment similar to the house arrest and the solitary confinement of hardened criminals in prisons.

However, unlike the individual convict, whose prison term is clearly defined, ours, presumably, will last till the discovery of a preventive vaccine or a curative medicine that would treat the COVID-19. Or, as anticipated, the transmission subsides as a result of the distancing measures.

To an extent all these hopes are uncertain or too distant to cover our present urgency. Obviously, somebody is deceiving us with false hopes. The new coronavirus of yet unknown resilience may defy our best efforts at getting a vaccine or medicine in good time. It may disgrace us again as much as the initial fright we are made to take, fleeing to our homes in panic, imprisoning ourselves and acting funny in addition, with regular hand-washing and facemasks.

So, if we commit ourselves to collective prayers with the recitation of the book we may see first, a miraculous relief of the COVID-19 pandemic, then after appreciating its value, the need to practice its teachings for a better ordered world.

And to show our repentant submission to God, I also suggest that, using force if necessary, the authorities should collect Zakat from the rich and distribute it to the poor according to Allah’s regulations. At this Ramadan month of devotion and mercy which, incidentally, coincides with the additional lockdown challenges, few things would be half as pleasing to Allah as providing for the needy members of society while at the same time establishing an important but long neglected pillar of His religion.

So the divine message embedded in the COVID-19 pandemic is all too serious to be ignored. Allah says that, as a rule, He does not change whatever adversity befalls a nation unless the nation reforms the evil existing within it. This implies that if we do not change our unjust sinful ways, as the COVID-19 warning demands, then we may as well adjust and get accustomed to a long prison term. Like HIV, Ebola and Lassa, the coronavirus too, may persist until a worst adversity strikes us again. Choice is ours.

Yusuf wrote from Tukuntawa quarters, Kano