Everyday when we read the newspaper or watch TV, we come to know about many different kinds of human miseries and mishaps. We also see people around us miserably suffering with chronic diseases, hunger, and poverty. We also hear about many catastrophic natural disasters such as earthquake, floods, hurricanes, tornado, cyclone, storms and droughts killing millions of people and leaving millions of widows, orphans, and handicaps.

A question arises that when God is All-mighty i.e. capable of controlling anything and everything and God is also all-knowing i.e., He knows everything that happens anywhere in the universe, then why such dreadful events occur.
This is a very important question. Many atheists use this question as a valid reason to deny the existence of God. This question also disturbs many ignorant Muslims. It is therefore essential for all Muslim students to have a satisfactory answer to this question.
This question does not have one simple answer as there are many different causes of human suffering and afflictions.

Some of the major causes of calamities and sufferings are as follows:

• Reaction of our action and Divine punishment.
• Warning and reminder to turn back to God.
• To energize and stimulate human spirit and to intensify his efforts.
• Examination.
• Divine system.

Reaction of our action.

The major cause of our all sufferings and miseries is our deeds. i.e., in most of the cases we suffer because of our wrong doings. Quran has disclosed this law of God.

“Then it shall be said to the wrongdoers: Taste the everlasting torment; Shall you be rewarded except according to your deeds” (10:52)

i.e., You receive the payment of what you earn. This law of God has also been discovered by Isaac Newton in Nature which we teach in Physics. i.e., every action has an equal reaction.

If we sincerely study and analyze our sufferings and miseries we will really know that in most of the cases our sufferings are the outcome of our own actions or attitude. Let us see this categorically.