Are Coronavirus and Other Things the Signs of the Hour?
Answered by Ustadh Salman Younas
Question
There are a lot of videos and scholars who claim that these are signs of Yaum al-Qiyama. On April 29, 2020, on the fifth day of Ramadan, an asteroid was said to fly very close to the earth or even hit it. Is this a sign of Yaum al-Qiyama?
And is the coronavirus one of the signs of Yaum al-Qiyama? I see videos daily that the world is finally going under; people prove it with Hadiths, etc. I would be happy to receive an answer; I deliberately turned to you.
Answer
The Prophet (blessings upon him) mentioned general and specific signs of the Hour and minor and major signs. What we see around us in terms of vice, death, plague, natural disasters, civil wars, sectarianism, the spread of usury, corrupt rulers, lack of adherence to the sunna, etc., are all signs of the Hour.
These signs do not intend to engage in games of speculation, however. They serve as a warning for people; they serve to remind us of our ephemeral nature, to recognize where we are ultimately headed, and change for the better. As the Quran says, “Be mindful of your Lord, for the earthquake of the Last Hour will be a mighty thing.” [Quran, 22:1]
Ultimately then, it is irrelevant when the world is going under. The main concern we should have is what we have prepared for the end, which will come to all of us. As the Prophet (Allah’s blessings upon him) said to one of his companions who inquired about the Hour, “What have you prepared for it?” [Bukhari]
[Ustadh] Salman Younas
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Ustadh Salman Younas, Born and raised in New York, graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Political Science and Religious Studies. After studying the Islamic sciences online and with local scholars in New York, Ustadh Salman moved to Amman. He studied Islamic law, legal methodology, belief, hadith methodology, logic, Arabic, and tafsir there. He is now in the final year of his Ph.D. at Oxford University, looking at the early evolution of the Hanafi madhab.
His teachers include Shaykh Faraz Rabbani, Shaykh Salah Abu’l Hajj, Shaykh Ashraf Muneeb, Shaykh Ahmad Hasanat, Shaykh Hamza Karamali, Shaykh Ahmad Snobar, Shaykh Ali Hani, Shaykh Hamza Bakri, Ustadh Rajab Harun, and others.
Ustadh Salman’s interests include research into the fields of law/legal methodology, hadith, and theology, as well as political theory, government, media, and ethics. He is also an avid traveler and book collector. He currently resides in the UK with his wife.
