painful punishment.” This particular prediction has been fulfilled
in very recent times in Europe.
On April 14
th
2010 a volcano erupted all of a sudden from
beneath the glaciers in Iceland, an island in the north Atlantic
about 200 miles south east of Greenland. So much ash was
emitted that it spread throughout the greater part of Europe’s
atmosphere. Darkness enveloped the entire region. From
European cities about 30,000 flights had been operating on a
daily basis. But because of this eruption more than half of these
flights had to be grounded. Due to this natural calamity the air
companies suffered losses of $200 million daily. Not only in
Europe but in other countries also many activities were seriously
affected. This volcanic eruption continued with increasing
intensity for about a week and has been erupting intermittently
with varying intensity till very recently. A natural calamity with
such severe repercussions has occurred for the first time in
known human history.
It is entirely possible that the ash thrown up by the volcanic
eruption in Iceland is the smoke which was predicted in the
Quran and hadith. History shows that probably other signs, as
are mentioned in the Hadith, have already appeared. The sign
of
dukhan
is probably the last but one sign. The final sign which
is going to appear is perhaps the rising of the sun from the West.
The Angel Israfeel will then blow the trumpet at some point.
According to the above-mentioned verse of the Quran, the
“painful punishment” does not mean the punishment of
Doomsday. It means rather the punishment for which the term
“lesser punishment” has been used in the Quran (21:32).
According to the Quran, the greater punishment is the one which
will be meted out after the trumpet has been blown by the Angel
Israfeel at the time of Doomsday. But before this, warnings will
come in the form of lesser punishments, so that people may heed
the warnings and reform themselves. Global warming, scarcity
of water, greater frequency of earthquakes, floods,
dukhan
(smoke), etc, are in the nature of lesser punishments. Now,
circumstances tell us that the last hour has come for man to
take heed, before it is too late for him to reform himself.
The predictions in the Hadith...
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