I hope you are all well and good in imaan and health. I am sure you are all praying for the Asia Quake/Tsunami disaster victims, especially our brother and sisters whose souls were, without notice, claimed by Hadhrat Azra'il (alaihi salaam) this last sunday gone.
I would like to, first of all and briefly, address a question that is on many peoples' minds and it is a valid question. The only one who has the right to take life is the one who gave life in the first place, i.e. Almighty Allah. If a person murders someone then he is prosecuted. No one is prosecuting God for this event because deep down, we all know (Muslim AND non-Muslim alike) that we are all to die one day and it is rightfully for God only to take our lives when He does and to take our lives how He wills them to be taken. As for "why did so many people die?" We all have to die one day. When each of us are going to die and how is up to our Lord and Creator. Some people are to die at different times to each other, some people are to die at the same moment as each other. Allah just chose for those approximately 150,000 people to die at that moment in time. It is not for us to ask "why, why, why?" It is simply God's will (masha Allah meaning: "what Allah willed"), though it is a great tragedy and catastrophe especially for the survivors. Sometimes a house needs to be burned down before it is to be built anew and we have already heard many heartbreaking stories of compassion, charity and bravery all over the world. Many good things can come from this disaster and this is just the way God works.
If we do not, however, learn from this event then it will be to our detriment. Our own fragile little lives and mortality and the reality of Allah's power and authority over the Creation, let alone the earth, is staring us in the face and man still continues to transgress and walk arrogantly upon the earth. Indeed, He is All-Powerful over all things, Most High and Transcendent. Instead of humbling ourselves and recognising the wisdoms and lessons from this event, we continue to look down our noses at this message from Heaven to Earth. Reader, take heed: We may boast about our technology and our advances and our science, but it takes just one command from Allah to take the souls of 150,000 people, if not more and destroy a whole region of a planet!
I would like to remind brothers and sisters not to get comfortable and say that this happened thousands of miles away and has nothing to do with us. The fact that this disaster transcended the trivial man-made borders is testament to the fact that:
People could rightfully say that America and Britain and Russia are the oppressors of the world, they are the ones who promote the unlawful, immorality and sin all over the world; why didn't God punish them? The answer is simple: this is a warning from Heaven, as was the great Iran earthquake last year. A warning about our sins and transgressions upon the earth and that we had better start acting correctly with regards to our duties to God and to our fellow man and, of course, the rest of Creation. We are vulnerable everywhere in the world to God's Judgement. Furthermore, these are signs of the imminent Day of Judgement when God is about to ask humanity whether they have served Him as they were created to do so or not.
At times like this, the 'Ulema (scholars) of Islam encourage the Muslims to do extra zikr (remembrance of Allah), more repentance (tauba), more istighfaar (asking for forgiveness). For example, once after an earthquake in Madinah, Caliph Umar ibn Abdel Azeez told people to give charity immediately. When natural disasters happen (or even unusual phenomenon like eclipses), the leaders of the Muslims have always exhorted people to increase in their good actions to earn the good pleasure of Allah and seek refuge with Him from His wrath.
For those of you whose imaan (faith) may be lacking in the fact that these are warnings from Almighty Allah, consider this (and you can check it yourself on the internet):
This Asia quake occurred on 26th December, 2004.
The Iran quake occurred on 26th December, 2003.
Ma'salaam
Tauseef Naqshbandi