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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I love Srilanka" data-source="post: 9748071" data-attributes="member: 244944">The Destruction of Great Cities: Wars and DisastersOne of the pronouncements given to us by the Prophet (saas) about the End Times is the following:Great cities will be ruined and it will be as if they had not existed the day before.(Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir al-Zaman)The ruin of great cities spoken of in this hadith brings to mind the destruction that now arises from war and various natural disasters. Recently developed nuclear weapons, aircraft, bombs, missiles, and other modern weapons, have caused untold destruction. These terrible weapons have brought about a degree of destruction never before seen. Indeed, the great cities targeted are most affected by this destruction. The incomparable destruction of the Second World War is an example of this. With the use of the atom bomb in world’s greatest war, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely destroyed. As a result of heavy bombing, European capitals and other important cities suffered a great amount of damage. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the damage caused to European cities by World War II:The resulting devastation had turned much of Europe into a moonscape: cities laid waste or consumed by fire storms, the countryside charred and blackened, roads pitted with shell holes or bomb craters, railways out of action, bridges destroyed or truncated, harbors filled with sunken, listing ships. “Berlin,” said General Lucius D. Clay, the deputy military governor in the U.S. zone of postwar Germany, “was like a city of the dead.”6 In short, the unprecedented destruction caused by the Second World War conforms entirely to that described in the hadith of the Prophet (saas).Another cause of the destruction of major cities is natural disasters. It is a statistical fact that the age in which we live has seen an increase in both the number and the seriousness of natural disasters. In the last ten years, disasters caused by climactic changes are a novel phenomenon. A dangerous and unwanted by-product of industry is global warming. Industry is gradually disturbing the balance in the world’s atmosphere, giving rise to climactic changes. The year of 1998 was the hottest on earth since records have been kept.7 According to the information of the American National Climate Data Center, the greatest number of weather-related disasters occurred in 1998.8 For example, Hurricane Mitch has been referred to by a number of observers as the world’s worst natural disaster ever to strike Central America.9 In the last few years, hurricanes, storms, typhoons and other such disasters have had a destructive effect on the American continent as well as in several other places in the world. In addition, floods have caused mudslides, which have engulfed certain centers of population. Furthermore, earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves have also caused great devastation. Therefore, all this destruction brought on upon the great cities by these calamities is an important sign in each case.EarthquakesThere is no doubt that there have been no other natural events in history that have affected people to the extent that earthquakes have. They can happen anywhere and at any moment. Throughout the centuries, they have caused many deaths and great material loss. For this reason, they have been greatly feared. Even the technology of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries has been able to prevent earthquake damage only to a certain extent.The 1995 earthquake in Kobe serves as an example to those who like to think that technology will make it possible to harness nature. It will be remembered that this earthquake came unexpectedly upon Japan’s largest industrial and transportation center. In spite of the fact that it only lasted 20 seconds, as Time magazine reported, it caused about 100 billion dollars in damage.10In the last few years, major earthquakes have occurred repeatedly and are among the foremost fears of people around the world. If we look at the data collected by the American National Earthquake Information Center for 1999, we find that 20,832 earthquakes happened somewhere in the world. As a result, an estimated 22,711 persons lost their lives.11 All such cases bring to mind what the Prophet (saas) said 1400 years ago: The Hour (Last Day) will not be established until ... earthquakes will be very frequent.(Bukhari) There are two great hadiths before the day of Judgment ... and then years of earthquakes.(Narrated by Umm Salama (r.a.))In the Qur’an, there are certain verses that point out the relation between earthquakes and the End Times. The 99th Surah is called Surat az-Zalzala; zalzala means great shaking, or earthquake. This Surah, composed of eight verses, describes the violent shaking of the earth and states that, following it, the Judgment Day will arrive, people will be raised from the dead, will give account of themselves to Allah, and receive their just rewards, even for the slightest thing that they have done:When the earth is convulsed with its quakingand the earth then disgorges its chargesand man asks, “What is wrong with it?”,on that Day it will impart all its newsbecause your Lord has inspired it.That Day people will emerge segregated to see the results of their actions.Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it.Whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it. (Surat az-Zalzala: 1-8)</blockquote>

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