Yasmin Mogahed – Is this global pandemic a punishment

			Look at the circumstance we're in right now. Here we are. It's Ramadan, the messages are closed. We
can't go to community of dogs we can barely see our families. You know, we're in this lockdown
there's, there's uncertainty, there's fear. What is all of this mean? You know a lot of us are very
confused. Is this a less anger? Is this a love punishing us for something? And so what we have to do
is put this into perspective. First, let's look at what Allah says in the Quran, Allah subhanaw
taala says in the Quran, that sometimes he allows us to taste a lesser affliction, before the
greater affliction, okay, so, so here Allah has has explained that there are two types of
		

			afflictions there. So Allah subhanaw taala is saying that there is a lesser affliction and there is
a greater affliction. Now, what is the difference between them, the lesser affliction is intended to
wake people up, it's not intended to destroy it's not intended to punish, it's actually intended to
bring us back to wake us up to make us realize that Whoa, you know, like, imagine that your house is
on fire, right? How are you going to know that your house is on fire initially, before you see you
know, the the fire in front of your eyes, you're gonna know that your house is on fire because you
have a smoke alarm that goes off and it beeps right now that smoke alarm is intended as a warning,
		

			it's a wake up call, it's telling you sort yourself out before your house burns down. Right? That's
what that's the purpose of an alarm, is that it's, it's telling you and it recognizes there's smoke
and then it goes off and it tells you take out this fire before it burns your house down. Okay? This
is the same concept Allah sends us afflictions that are lesser and nature in order as in order to
wake us up like a smoke detector, like a smoke alarm, and to allow us to, to, to address the fire
before it burns your house down. Right. So this is how we have to view what is happening around us
is that these are actually Mercy of Allah subhanaw taala in disguise, if you look at the smoke
		

			detector, that's actually a mercy for you. I know smoke detectors are really annoying when they go
off, right? It's like a really obnoxious sound. But that noxious sound is actually a mercy for you
Why? Because it's telling you that there's something you need to fix in your house, right. And if
you don't fix it, your house is gonna burn down. Similarly, there's a lot of stuff we need to fix
inside ourselves. There's a lot of stuff we need to fix in the way we treat people. There's a lot of
stuff we need to fix in terms of how we interact with our families in terms of how we interact with
God, in terms of the the stuff that's in our hearts, there's a lot that we need to fix. And so Allah
		

			subhanaw taala allows us to to have this wake up call so that we can fix it before it's too late.
And this is the difference between the lesser affliction allowed double Edna and the greater
affliction and other upper level Akbar is an affliction that comes to wipe out a nation right? This
is, this is the ending, right? This is like what happened to Pharaoh at the end of his life, even
though Allah sent actually lesser afflictions to Pharaoh in order to give him a chance as well to
wake up and to fix himself. But he didn't. He refused every single one. And so what happened is the
at the very end when Allah subhanaw taala, allowed the Red Sea to drown him that was the greater
		

			affliction that was that we'll talk about because it, he couldn't come back from it. And so the
lesser affliction the smoke detector in in my analogy, it gives us an opportunity to come back to to
repent, to fix ourselves, it's like, it's like an opportunity right now. It's a pause. And then on
top of it, Allah gives us Ramadan, right? And it's a pause, so that we can look at our lives and we
can look at ourselves and we can ask what needs to change? What do I need to fix? Have I have I
abandoned the Qur'an? Have I have I have I, you know, not kept the ties of kinship? Have I been?
Have I not been good to my parents? Have I not been keeping up my responsibilities? You know, how
		

			have I been treating people? And wait a minute, do I have diseases internally that that are now
becoming manifested, for example, selfishness, right? A lot of people are they're they're, they're
becoming exposed not not just to the world, not to others necessarily, but to themselves that like
this, this knee jerk reaction that when there's a scarcity, Neff CFC myself, myself that that people
want to hoard for themselves. That's an indication of a disease internally of selfishness. Right?
		

			Are we thinking of others? Are we just simply wanting to cover it for ourselves? So these are all
things that the circumstance allows us to see so that we can rectify