Islam, COVID-19, and the Divine Decree
When becoming a martyr serves as an incentive to become infected.
Fri May 22, 2020 Mark Durie
Natural disasters can raise pressing questions for religious believers who believe in a sovereign God. One question which inevitably arises is, “What is God doing in this?†For the almost 2 billion Muslims who make up a quarter of the world’s population, this is an important question. How might Muslims respond when they seek to frame a spiritual response to the pandemic? And what spiritual resources might their faith offer them in the face of this disruption to their lives?
For Muslims, there are specific religious obligations which social distancing requirements interfere with, especially communal prayer in mosques, pilgrimage, and washing the body of the dead.
Over recent months, most Muslim organizations around the world have been supporting social distancing measures brought in by their governments to control the pandemic. In Saudi Arabia Muslims were ordered not to perform their prayers at mosques, but to perform them in their own homes. The Australian National Imams Council issued a ‘Public Statement’ on 18 March, which gave Australia Muslims similar advice.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/05/islam-covid-19-and-divine-decree-mark-durie/
