Fundamentale Gemeinsamkeiten
Anlässlich der Behauptung des fundamentalistischen Predigers Pat Robertson, das Erdbeben von Haiti, sei Folge eines vor zweihundert jahren geschlossenen Paktes des Landes mit dem Teufel, hat Salman Hameed einen seiner Artikel über das Erdbeben in Nordpakistan im Jahr 2006 neu gepostet:
–––At the beginning of the new millennium, it is thus astonishing to hear some Muslim scholars invoke supernatural explanations for the Pakistan earthquake. While it was refreshing to see some open debate about treating earthquakes as purely natural phenomena, the dominant discourse continued to be about some sort of Divine warning or retribution. A few have gone as far as to blame the victims of the earthquake. It is as if the magma, which has been driving plates naturally and indifferently for billions of years, has suddenly become sensitive to the intentions of human inhabitants.
On the other side of the intellectual spectrum, even the idea of a scientific explanation appears threatening. For example, Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal has this to say in the winter 2005 volume of the journal Islam and Science: “… if earthquakes can be explained away in terms of the movement of plate tectonics, and all that happens on earth in terms of randomly occurring processes, then life on this ravaged planet itself becomes terminus ad quem, without any hope of a future life”.
Instead of seeing the potential for saving lives, Dr. Iqbal would rather shoot the messenger. Science, in fact, is the process that removes randomness from human perception. We no longer attribute lightening to Divine wrath. Rather, we put rods on top of tall buildings and direct the flow of electrons into the ground.