Diseases and epidemics

Disease is also a major cause of sufferings. It is said that diseases have killed or disabled more people then all the wars ever fought. Each year, tens of millions of people die from different kinds of diseases. In the United States alone, diseases kill nearly 2 million people each year and leave many people permanently disabled.

Apparently it seems that God is solely responsible for all kinds of diseases as He has created the viruses, bacteria which cause many different kinds of diseases. But this is not true.

Medical experts say that almost all diseases are caused by ignoring the standard laws of nature. i.e., our life-style, habits, living conditions and physical environment nur ture diseases.Let’s take malaria, the most common disease of the third world countries. Malaria is caused by protozoan called plasmodia and is transmitted by the bite of the female anopheles mosquito. It is true that Allah Subhanahu taala has created the mosquito and plasmodia which infect us with malaria. But Allah has also instructed mosquitoes to live in dirty water and filthy environment. thus, by creating a dirty environment, we invite mosquitoes, houseflies, rats, and other germs carriers in our home to deliver diseases. Similarly AIDS, the most dangerous and incurable disease, which has killed millions of peoples, is a disease sponsored by criminals. The cause of AIDS is HIV virus, undoubtedly created by Allah, but who transfer it into the human body ? Allah or the patient himself /herself. At least in this particular disease doctors have honestly acknowledged that the only source of this disease is the patient himself / herself as he or she is the one who has acquired it. That is why they have named it Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Even those innocent people who get this disease from blood transfusion or blades are due to the human negligence.

Thus in most of the cases, the sufferings due to the chronic disease that makes the life miserable, are the result of our own deeds.

Black Death.

As mentioned above, not always but in most of the cases, the cause of the disease is one’s bad deed or negligence of Divine orders. Sometimes the whole nation is punished by epidemics.

Scientists say they don’t yet know, how all of sudden a particular epidemic disease grows and spreads widely killing millions of people and then goes away itself without any human efforts.For example, outbreaks of plague have been reported in different periods of history that have killed hundreds of millions of people.

In 542 AD an epidemic of plague struck Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) and killed half of the population.

In 1347, one of the most disastrous plague burst out in Europe which killed 40,000,000 people - about a fourth of the European population at that time. This pandemic plague is called Black Death in history.

In 1800’s a third epidemic appeared suddenly in China and spread like a fire. It killed more than 20 million people.

Scientists have tried to guess some of the probable causes of these epidemics but are puzzled by their mystified origin. For instance, they can not answer such questions, how a particular cause develops that spreads plague, and why it has developed at some particular time and not at any other time, and how it stops itself without any apparent reason.
To cite an instance, consider the apparent known cause of the second epidemic - Black Death, which killed 40 million people in Europe. It is said that the source of this epidemic were Black Rats which carry a particular species of flies called Xenopsylla Cheopsis. But the origin from where all these rats who arrived to spread the epidemic is still a riddle. More
surprisingly, why the same rats did not spread the disease where they were living before. Further to their surprise, it was found that the Brown Rats, which are rare in Europe, came from China and killed the Black Rats which were spreading the disease. Those who do not believe in God and in His planning, such epidemics will remain a mystery. But those who read Quran can understand, why the Black Rats brought the disease in Europe and who sent the Brown rats to stop the epidemic.