The Fiqh of Plagues
Yasir Qadhi – Ask Shaykh YQ – Episode 48
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My brother hardy from Sri Lanka, emails Sri Lanka is a beautiful country Sri Lankans in the audience and used to Lanka is in the audience. Nobody from Sri Lanka, one of the most beautiful countries I've visited with some of the sweetest people Mashallah so sad tragedy that happened, you know last year as you know, but otherwise what a beautiful country it is. But brother hardy Mashallah is watching our shows from Sri Lanka and he emails and apparently he had a trip upcoming to China. And now he is saying what is to be done that the Islamic rulings on plagues and traveling in light of the Coronavirus in China, and also whether we can say that this is a divine punishment from a law
because of what is happening to our weaker brothers and sisters. This is the question about the ruling on plagues traveling to and from plagues and whether we can say that it is a divine punishment because of what they are doing one
in
the name.
So we began by stating that I should have the Allahu Allah asked to the Prophet sallallahu Sallam about plagues, she asked the process of about plagues. And the Prophet system said that plagues are a punishment that Allah sends to whomever he pleases. And Allah has made it a means of mercy for the believers. It is a punishment to some and a mercy for the others who believe in Allah subhanho wa Taala that no one stays at a place of plague, and expects Allah to reward him and knows that nothing will happen except what Allah has decreed, except that he shall get the reward of a Shaheed this isn't so high Bahati. And the Prophet system said Hadith is Mustafa la Bukhari Muslim. The plague is
considered a Shahada for every believer. So the plague is a mechanism for Shahada. And also in Sahih Bukhari the famous incident that took Pablo de la Juan was on his way to Syria. And Abu bayda, Ahmed Al Jazeera met him on his way back, and there was a plague in that land and
abort obey. They said to him, I have just come from Syria. And there is a plague people are dying. This is a plague that is called the throne of grace in the 18th year of the Hydra. And the 18th year, the Hitler there was a massive plague that killed over 1000 Sahaba. And that is why To this day, all across Jordan, all across Philistine there are graves of the Sahaba most of them from the plague. And this year, so there was a massive any plague and you know, the people dying and whatnot. So a waterway that comes back and says that there is a plague over there. And you're going in, why are you going in? so
upset? Call for me them. Oh Ha Joon. So all the Maha Joon came. And he asked them, What do you think we should do? And they differed amongst themselves. Some of them said We came for a purpose to fight the Romans we should go in and the other said no, with outside this, go back over there. And He then said that Okay, you guys leave called the unsolved. So he called the unsolved and the unsolved as well divided amongst themselves, they couldn't unite. Each one is what half is saying go half assing come back. So he said, Okay, you guys go. Then he said, Bring for me the elders of the Quraysh from those who migrated from before the Fatah, the creme de la creme, bring me the senior of the Sahaba
Bring me the muhajir own of the original before the conquest and the elders amongst them. So then a small group came and all of them agreed that they should not enter the land. All of them agreed that we should go back and so I'm gonna hop then announced to the people that we will be returning after salata. After the door, we're going to pray and we're going to go back to that we're not going to enter the land the plague is in the land we haven't come there. We're going to go back aboard obey the became frustrated said yeah, I'm here on what meaning that are you running away from the other of Allah is the famous famous phrase, are you running away from the puddle of Allah? He responded,
we are running from the corner of a lot to the corner of Allah subhana wa Tada. This is all Alaska. Okay, we are running from the color of Allah to the color of London. He gave another example as well then have dorama dibner was away on a journey or something. He came back and he said, I have something you should all hear. I heard the profitsystem say that
In Bali Muslim I heard the Prophet system say, if the plague comes in a land where you reside, do not exit fleeing from the plague. And if the play comes in another land, do not enter that land.
And so he brought an evidence that is explicit and ergonomic hottub thank Allah subhanho wa Taala for being guided to the truth, before he even heard the explicit evidence for this. Now, by the way, this incident is so profound, so many things can be derived of them. The true leader, always the Shura of them, no matter how great the Sahaba were, their opinions are not divine. All the Maha junan are divided all the ensemble height divided of them. Yes, seniority and wisdom plays a role here. That's why I said mushiya to polish the elders. youngsters are very impetuous youngsters want to do things rationally like the Battle of OIT. They were the ones Yeah, let's go Yeah, let's do
that. They want to have a confrontation. And so when the youngsters are there, half of everything, let's go away. And why are we running away? And as I said many times, life teaches you what books and lectures will not teach you. Going through life will teach you what books and lectures will not and the impetuousness and rashness, which is a common trait of youth, not just a Muslim of all youth, it tempers down you get wisdom. So the elder said, we're not there. The problems over there, why can't we always use common sense? And then the evidence arrives, and the evidence is quite explicit in this regard. So from these evidences, pretty much all the oma is pretty much any clear,
and this event hedger summarizes it. And he says that,
that the one who leaves a plague infested town, running away from the plague, this is sinful in the eyes of Allah, that it is how long if the plague infects your town, and you leave, because you are scared of the plague. Then he says, and there is a tail off, if you already had a journey planned, and you're going for another reason, there is a laugh, and it goes back to your knee. So suppose there was a journey already had it planned, the plague is just beginning. Can you leave or not? Physically wise, there's enough that up on this issue. But in our times, there is no problem. When we delegate this authority to the World Health Organizations to governments that understand and the
Shetty, I would give governments the right to do crowd control, if it is done based on the overall benefit to humanity. In other words, it is shuttered a Why is very easily justifiable, that the government clamps down on a neighborhood or in a city, even if some people are not sick. And they say I'm not sick right now. And until the government does it, tell them what to say no, we're going to basically have you all in a complete contained situation. Why? Because in the shared era, the greater harm
is not done. If there's a smaller harm that can be done. Instead, we choose the lesser of two evils. If there's a contained virus versus an uncontained virus, that surely I will say, contain the virus. So to contain groups of people for this is completely permissible. Now our scholars also mentioned this applies when there is a plague and a plague. We know what it is. It is some type of virus and disease like the Black Death, like the Spanish influenza that took place 100 years ago, like what we see now of the Coronavirus, where we don't even have the cure, and it just spreads instantaneously and people fall sick and die. This is a play. This does not apply if it's not a plague like
sickness, if it's a curable sickness, if it's something to do with the atmosphere. So somebody suffers from asthma, and you move to a place that has a high pollen count, right? And you're saying oh I need to run away. Nobody should come as a stock for the law. The process of said don't fly No, he didn't say don't flee from asthma.
It is completely permissible to move from location to location because of your health because of health issues. And in fact, emammal Buhari has a chapter heading that shows his right after mentioning don't run from the plague the next chapter heading the permissibility of moving location to location if it is a disease other than a plague. Then he quotes the famous Hadith of the owner Nene, a group of people came to Medina and the climate of Medina did not suit them. So the process and told them to go outside the city and stay there. So because it was moist and humid and these are desert so they couldn't they were falling sick. So he allowed them to move based upon climate.
Obviously this is completely highlight. So first part of the question, you should not enter this city.
Generally speaking, unless there is a need that you're helping the people there and you are doing something in this case with the person
of the authorities, then it will be permitted Otherwise, the general rule when you're in a situation of plague, and your locality, you do not exit and when you're outside, you do not come in. And this is pretty much, almost pretty much unanimous. The other point that our brother asked Is that Is it permissible to say this is a divine punishment. And the response to this is that the Hadith is very clear.
Any calamity, especially a plague, is a punishment to some an a mercy to others. This is very clear, it is incorrect to extrapolate and say this is a punishment to everybody, because the Hadith is very clear.
Also, a punishment for sins to certain people, no problem, but for anyone else to specify because of this sin. How do you know you are now speaking on behalf of Allah subhana wa Taala we do not specify, we are very, very irritated and angry at what is happening to our weaker brothers and sisters. We know that that government is a tyrannical government, we know that it is now going down a path of Nazi fascism since World War Two. Know, since World War Two, we have not seen this large scale concentration camps, as we now see in the East Turkistan province. And it is very ironic that we are currently celebrating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and how it is very,
very ironic that our government just gave $10 million to never again, it is bitterly ironic that our president is standing with the president of Israel, giving more and more concessions to the Palestinians, to the Israelis against the Palestinians all the time saying never again, we're never going to allow this to happen. We've learned our lesson. And right under our noses, the whole world knows what is going on in China, and even what is going on to the Palestinians. So we have to say very clearly, that it appears there seems to be two justice systems and two different rules by how people are judged, and not all bloods are equal in their eyes. This seems very clear as well.
Nonetheless, our anger at the Chinese government and what it is doing, does not allow us to go beyond what is right. Allah says in the Quran, this is explicit. La Jolla. jurymen Commissioner Coleman Allah Allah tanjirou eridu who acaba taqwa, do not allow the hatred of a group of people to cause you to act unjustly, act justly, even with your enemies. That is the essence of taqwa. This is in the Koran, we are angry at what the government is doing. Yet we do not say that the whole city of Wuhan has been put under threat of a lot and punishment of a lot because of this. How do we know? By the way, maybe it is, but maybe not, it's not my business to say all that we can say any calamity
could be a means of punishment. And yes, when a sin is public, then generally speaking, you know, the there is it is true generically speaking, that it is possible that Allah comes but we never generalize to everybody, because there are innocent people there. And there are people that have nothing to do with the crime. And we cannot just say all of them are evil and going to Jehovah is not their fault. What is going on? This is the opportunity to in this dunya be compassionate, send any aid, if possible, and in a religious perspective, give Dawa and there are Muslims in that city. By the way, there are graduate students studying in that city, there are local Chinese Muslims in
that city as well. It's not as if we have to strip ourselves of our complete humanity. There are people that are suffering that don't deserve to suffer, and it will be insha Allah tada a means of Rama for them, it is not either for them, there are people upon whom this is not either, but rather a Rama. So we do not generalize and say that all of them are suffering. And also, there's an element that I saw myself very clearly online. Some Muslims seem to be happy that this is happening. And we do not take happiness in the pain and suffering of innocent people, these people were not the ones who put the Muslims in prison. These people are average human beings. Would you like it? And by the
way, the same justification is used when this country is attacked by the crazies by the radicals, and they say all you guys are guilty. All you guys are evil, they use the same justification. We don't like it, then no, not everybody is guilty. We live in this now because we So then why are we applying it over there? Why are we having a double standard? We know the reality that our government can do some very evil things, but not all the people are evil. We know this reality. That foreign policy can kill a million people in Iraq and not bat an eyelid. Go and do arniston. Guantanamo is still operating right now as we speak. 20 years almost have gone by and there
Still over 50 people being tortured worse than dogs in our local neighborhood would ever be done. If that is done to a dog, they would call in the ASPCA and call and call the police and you know, the Society for the cruelty of animals wouldn't I would come in, so we can call something injustice, and we are living in that society. If somebody else were to gloat that, oh, the hurricane came to Dallas, and so many people's property was damaged, they'd be happy at this. Would you like this? So then why do we allow some Muslims to do the same to what is happening in China? It's our job to teach them No, we don't gloat. These are innocent people, even if they're non Muslim, we ask Allah
to guide them, but we don't glow to the tragedy happening to them. And there are also Muslims over there. So the bottom line, yes, it is true. Allah says in the Quran, and the evil that happens to is because of what you have done. But then what does Allah say? Well, yeah, fornicated Allah can also forgive because of this, now is the time to be compassionate, to help them out and to give them that power as well the turn to Allah subhana wa tada and those who do so, this will be a means of reima for them, not a means of either, without a shallow dive will conclude for today.
In Fei,
Fei
Li,
Li, t jumbo