Earthquake, Tsunami, Tornadoes: enough to make us know that the last day will come

Tuesday 14th June 2011 at 8am, I reached my work place and as I sat in my office, rushing to get some work done before a meeting that was due in a few minutes time, I felt the table shake and then, it was my chair. At first I thought there was something wrong with me, maybe I'm dizzy but then I realized, the table and chair were actually moving. I thought to myself, "this feels like an earthquake".

This was my first experience of a tremor. The epicentre was in Northern Sumatera measuring 5.6. We do not live in the fault lines but we are surrounded by countries that lie in the fault lines of the tectonic plates. The earthquake in the Indian ocean near Aceh created a tsunami that devastated many countries and took away countless number of lives in 2004. The recent Japanese earthquake also produced a tsunami with devastating consequences, destroying a nuclear plant that could potentially release radiation that will effect the whole world for many years to come.

As I sat there, swaying in my seat feeling completely helpless, I felt very unpleasant. It was like being trapped in a shaker with no means of escaping. However, this was only from a 5.6 magnitude earthquake occurring many miles away...I thought to myself, "SubhaAllah! this is a sign and why do we not see it?"

Allah swt informs us in the Qur'an about the Day of Judgement which He names various names. One of its name is al-Zalzalah, the final earthquake.

Is it so hard for us to realize that the earthquakes that we have witnessed so far are a sign for what is to come? Just because we survive to tell the tale of the earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes does not mean that we will always survive, that there will be no ending to this world.

Rather, these events should make us realize that the earth will come to an end and it could take us by surprise just like the Aceh tsunami, the Japanese tsunami and the hurricane in midwest USA. Are we going to say all these warnings in the Qur'an are tell tales just because it hasn't happened yet. Will we only start believing when the day strikes us without warning? 

Allah has warned us about the last day and it is not to make us scared irrationally, it is not to create a purely emotional reaction that will last a few seconds, forgetting about it after the adrenaline rush has dissipated. Rather, this warning is for us to seriously consider our position in this world and the next, why are we here? where do we want to go from here? what will happen to us when we die? These are important questions that need a definitive answer.

We need to know about our Creator, what He demands from us and the fact that we will return to Him one day.

These signs are actually a blessing for mankind that we recognize the Truth, so that we are prepared and for us to work towards the greater things in life, like obeying the commands of Allah, working to make His words the highest, working to achieve Jannatul Firdaus, working to implement Allah's rules and systems that will bring justice to world, like the time of the Prophet (saw) and the sahabah and those Khalifs that came after them, the Umayyad, the Abbasids and the Uthmani. Those were the glory days of Islam under the Khilafah.

When we read about what is happening around us, we know that there are activities happening underneath the earth and we do not need to be a professor in geology to recognize these signs. How long do we have on this planet, I do not know. No one knows but Allah but it should make us understand that we are limited, our lives are limited, the life of this earth is limited and we need to know for sure that Allah is telling us the Truth. Allah swt says in the Qur'an:

Surah Al Haqqah: 14 - 16 "And the earth and the mountains shall be removed from their places, and crushed with a single crushing. then on that Day shall the Great event befall. And the heaven will be rent asunder for that Day it (the heaven) will be frail and torn up."