Why did Allah Permit so much suffering

You might find this article helpful:

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamO nline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=111950354447 8

Peace, ummziba.

18Bash wrote: I would not know whether this issue has been previously discussed in any of the fora here but i stumbled on this article recently http://www.living-waters.us/Reading_Room/Gods_Answer.htm. It's a Christian's attempt to answer the question of why Allah has allowed disasters like Katrina, The Tsunami, the Plague, the World Wars, Earthquakes etc. to cause so much sufferings to his creatures when he is supposed to be a loving and caring God. Any input from our muslim brethren on this issue?

World Wars were clearly caused by MEN.  If Almighty God gave mankind Free Will (in Eden)...  and men, by hook or by crook, CHOOSE to start wars...  then Almighty God would be violating His own Godly gift to men were God to "beam down" and forcibly stop all the participants from doing wrong and sowing ill.  MOREOVER, were Almighty God to do so, He would be violating mankind's RESPONSIBILITY for mankind's own deeds and choices.

Only in GOD is their life... if you follow MEN, it leads to wars and death.  NEVER has that Law EVER been broken.  The very presence of wars across the face of this earth is PROOF of how far mankind has STRAYED from God's Will... NOT that Almighty God (?!?!) wills wars upon His own creation!!  It's the SNAKE and the followers of CAIN who murder and #### up the whole show for the rest of us -- NOT ALMIGHTY GOD.

Plagues are ALSO the work of MEN -- but INDIRECTLY.  Plagues never swept across Europe 2000 years ago.  Why?  Because Germans and Celts were living in HARMONY with nature (at least, MUCH more so).  They were HEALTHY and VIGOROUS and STRONG and WELL-FED.  They lived off FRESH MEAT and FRESH FRUIT and drank CLEAN WATER from their crystal clear streams and rivers.  Because they were STRONG, each man elbowed out plenty of space for his own Longhouse for his own family -- there was no OVERCROWDING.

Along comes Rome.  Rome buys Karl the Frank with its gold (actually, the Romans funded the Carolingian Coup against the Merovingian kings, bringing Karl's line to power in France).  Then Rome sent Karl Saxonslayer into Germany, again and again and again, and each time he lost or was forced to deal with issues elsewhere and left, the Saxons rose up again... but Rome had deep pockets, and Karl just bought MORE mercenaries from elsewhere.  With an endless supply of money and men, Karl eventually wore the Saxons down, and they were yoked fully by about 800 CE.  For his services in extending the "Gospel" of the "Savior", according to Roman rites (of the sword), Karl was renamed Karl the Great, or, in Latin, Karl Magnus, which has become over time Charlemagne.

Rome went about turning once-fierce warriors into peasant serfs.  Rome taxed them heavily, bled them dry, forced them to till the lands, destroyed their Old Ways and Heroic Traditions, replacing them with the "Gospel" of "just shut up and pay your taxes quietly so 'God' won't throw you even deeper into Hell".  Germans were intentionally and perpetually under-fed, to keep them tired and hungry... so they never had the STRENGTH to rise up against their Roman overlords.

2000 years ago, German men were, on average, 6'2" 220lbs, with 20% greater muscle density (as shown by bone thicknesses from recovered skeletons) than men do today.  German women were 5'11" 170 lbs.  You had to be huge to hunt 2500 lbs adult male Aurochs bison and 750 lbs wild tusked boar for dinner every week.  That is why it took the Romans so long to bring Deutschland down. 

But by the time you reach the middle ages, as you probably well know, average heights for Germanic men were only 5'4" 140lbs and women even smaller.  That is a HUGE reduction in body size.  Why?

THEY WERE STARVING -- UNDERFED -- MALNOURISHED -- "ETHIOPIA" if you will.

And it was done, by Rome, INTENTIONALLY, WITTINGLY, for exactly the effect it had -- keep them WEAK to keep them DOWN.

When you are THAT malnourished...

and when you are HERDED onto plantations for your Papal backed overlords...

and HERDED into cities where it's more economical to police you...

you are BEGGING bacteria to come and infect you!  Your IMMUNE SYSTEM suffers when you are so starved!  And with such high population densities, if one person gets sick, the whole town is gone!

THAT is why "the plague" killed 1/2 of Europe's population.... in the MEDIEVAL DARK AGES... but NEVER in pre-Roman European history!

You'll note in the OT, city dwellers are always CURSED.  The whole line of CAIN through his son ENOCH was linked with CITIES -- ENOCH was the 1st city!  And you'll note, whereas Abel was a hunter who offered meat (wild Hunter Gatherer), Cain was an agricultural farmer (domesticated Farm serf/peasant) who only had GRAIN...

Almighty God blessed ABEL (wild Hunter Gatherer), not CAIN (tame farmer serf).  This "Elder Farmer Brother, Younger Hunter Brother" theme weaves through the OT -- it is symbolic for the everlasting strife between wild and free Hunter-Gatherers in the hinterlands... against the brutal crackdown POLICE STATES of Nimrod et al who drive human chattel as "beasts of the field" to work their vast manors and plantations.  Almighty God is ALWAYS on the side of the NOMAD versus the PEASANT.

Furthermore, the WILD is always linked to the PROPHETS!  The Messiah spent 40 days IN THE WILDERNESS.  John the Dunker (Baptist) came from the WILDERNESS.  Moses and the Israelites prepared to attack Canaan in the WILDERNESS.  I understand:

Muslims believe Muhammad was annointed as God's prophet to mankind during his solo retreats in a cave in the wilderness, where he would immerse himself in spiritual meditation.

http://news.ucc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=vi ew&id=425&Itemid=54

So we see that GOD is a GOD of the WILD, of NATURE, of the fierce ferocious UNTAMED WILDERNESS...

NOT the tamed domesticated URBAN CITY AGRICULTURAL FARM cultures = NIMROD / CAIN / CAIN's line that grew so bad it led up to the FLOOD of GOD'S WRATH.

WILD NOMAD = GOD-LIKE = GOOD

Tamed settled farmer = un-God-like = APART from GOD, SEPARATED from GOD, driven AWAY from GOD (by men, for 'gain') = BAD

So, EXACTLY as cities have ALWAYS been cursed (historians speak of cities as "consuming people" through crime and other causes, including disease, that dramatically increase the death rate) throughout the OT, once ROME got its chokehold on EUROPE, EUROPE too became cursed... and BOOM! plague after plague wipes out the WEAKENED and STARVED population.

The PLAGUE, with all its MILLIONS of deaths, is therefore (and quite PREDICTABLY SO) the INDIRECT doings of MORTAL MEN --- AGAIN, not Almighty God!

As for Earthquakes -- to be blunt, who bites it in Earthquakes?  Do you ever hear about some Nomad killed when his tent collapsed upon him?  His camel or his horse or his donkey fell over on him?  NO.

Who bites it in Earthquakes?  CITY DWELLERS.  And Almighty God didn't build those stone houses that just crushed you, neither.

And the Tsunami?  If men were IN TUNE with NATURE... to wit, IN TUNE WITH THE WILD... many more could have LIVED!

I was told that many ELEPHANTS and other ANIMALS felt the ground rumble and saw the see draw out... and RAN FOR THE HILLS, HIGH GROUND... and LIVED.

If MEN were in TUNE with the WILD, ALIGNED with the WILD, they too would have seen all the animals beating a b-line for the high ground, and said, "uh, guys, it's time we high tail it, just drop it, grab what rations you can, throw them in the truck or backpack, and let's go!"

That would have at least HELPED.

WILD = FREE = FIERCE = HEALTHY = GODLY = GOOD

City = tame = soft = owned = human chattel = apart from God = bad

Far more "evil" in the world can, at the end of the day, be linked to the doings of MORTAL MEN, bipedal homonids who put their pants on one leg at a time just like you, than perhaps you realize.  At the end of the day, if we all lived as GOD WILLS -- in ALIGNMENT with nature, the world would surely be a MUCH BETTER place. 

Bismarck, I loved your post, I much agree with it   .

But I do say that there has always been suffering of some kind, people would've asked God or a particular god if they worshipped many, Why?. Seasons weren't always favourable for producing food, or death of a loved one, or some difficultly that a person was having and felt he was suffering. Then the question of why would come up.