GLOBAL WARMING:
DIVINE WARNING OF DOOMSDAY
Scientists from all over the world repeatedly emphasise that global warming is the greatest danger of present times. Both print and electronic media inform people daily of this perilous situation.
Reports based on the findings of international scientists, such as “Doomsday Not Far” (Hindustan Times, December 8, 2007) and an Indian TV programme, ‘Five Years to Doomsday’ telecast on December 20, 2007, warned that climate change is now turning into climate disaster. As a result, the day is fast approaching when human beings, regardless of where they are living, will no longer inhabit the planet earth.
An international panel of 25,000 scientists, who belonged to 130 countries, was formed under the aegis of the United Nations, the most outstanding international institution in the world. Headquartered in Paris, this panel was formed to investigate the causes of climate change. It completed its research and submitted a report to the United Nations. The media covered this sensational report at length and was published in detail by the Times of India on February 3, 2007, titled ‘Warning Signs’. I think it would have been more appropriate to call it ‘Warning Signs of Doomsday.’
In the context of recent deliberations by scientists from all over the world on this subject, the Times of India published a report on May 18, 2007, titled ‘By 2050 the Earth Will be Arid and Empty.’ According to this report, a well-known scientist, James Lovelock, observed in the light of scientific information that by 2050, a significant part of the land surface would have become dry. It would pose a severe threat to the lives of all living beings. We have reached the beginning of the end, from which point people will start dying one by one, eventually putting an end to all life on earth. “We are on the edge of the greatest die-off humanity has ever seen. We will be lucky if 20 of us survive what is coming.” (p. 22)
A letter on this subject, written by Sir Isaac Newton, the famous British scientist, in 1704, was displayed in a museum in Jerusalem. He wrote that the present world would come to an end in 2060. It was reported on the front page of the Times of India, June 18, 2007, under the heading, ‘Newton Saw End of the World in 2060.’
Sir Isaac Newton (d. 1727) had made this observation based on a mathematical calculation based in turn on the classical laws of gravity and motion. This estimate appeared so strange that people took it to show a superstitious side to Newton’s life. This letter was first shown to the public in 1969 when Jerusalem’s Hebrew University displayed it in the ‘Newton’s Secrets’ exhibition.
Newton’s observation by mathematical calculation regarding the end of the world has become a known fact in science. The climate change taking place as a result of global warming in modern times has brought scientists to conclude that by 2010 the life support system will be so disturbed that most probably all kinds of life will end on earth by 2050.
By the beginning of the 21st century, scientists worldwide had become unanimous in their warning that the earth was changing rapidly as a result of global warming and climatic changes. According to modern scientific observations, these changes will render our earth uninhabitable by 2050.
Over the last ten years, scientists have published many reports on this subject. Recently, the American Science Magazine published one such report by James Hansen (67), a top scientist who is the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. A summary of this report was published in The Times of India, New Delhi, on April 9, 2008, under the caption “Earth in Crisis.” According to this report (p. 35), “we have already reached a dangerous level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
The news given by scientists regarding the disturbance of the balance governing the life support systems on earth is based not on theoretical calculations or conjecture but rather on the information garnered from observations. In our times, the latest scientific methods have been employed to enable continuous study and observation based on which these reports have been published in the media. All such information is of a kind that is accessible to anyone with a scientific background.
Negative Effects of Global Warming
The massive ice caps at both the north and south poles, the vast freshwater reservoirs, are now melting at an alarming rate. Also, there are massive, mountain-top glaciers—gigantic storehouses of drinking water—which, as a consequence of global warming, are likewise rapidly melting, and their stored water is draining off into the oceans through the rivers.
Global warming is altering many features of the world permanently. A warmer world significantly impacts extremes of temperature and rainfall with implications for human health, ecosystem survival, and sustainable economic activity. Enhanced warming is expected to amplify the thawing of permafrost and the loss of seasonal snow cover of land ice and Arctic sea ice. Besides other negative impacts, climate change is resulting in two unbearable situations. On the one hand, very soon the level of water in the seas will rise, inundating coastal cities. On the other hand, the non-coastal areas will suffer from an intolerable water shortage. Some scholars predict that the shortage of water will become so acute that even a third world war might occur over this issue.
This results in two unbearable situations. On the one hand, the level of water in the seas will soon rise, flooding coastal cities such as Calcutta, Bombay, Chennai, etc.
The rivers are always full of water because the ice in the mountains keeps gradually melting the whole year-round, and this water continuously comes to the rivers through tributaries. However, when all this ice has melted, naturally, the rivers will run dry. Moreover, all their fresh water will be mixed with the ocean’s salty water. The ocean will be full of water but, being too salty, it will be fit neither for irrigation nor for drinking. The situation prevailing will be somewhat like that portrayed by Samuel Coleridge in his poem ‘The Ancient Mariner’: “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
Time reporting of a Study on the melting of glaciers stated, “Glacier Loss Is ‘Unstoppable.’ The report elaborated on this, saying, “The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the keys to global sea rise. Running up against the Amundsen Sea, it contains an estimated 27,808 cubic Miles (2.2 million cubic Km) of ice, about 10% of Antarctica’s total land ice volume. That is enough ice to raise the global sea level by more than 15 feet (4.6 meters) were it to melt, collapse and flow into the ocean, which in turn would swamp coastal cities as far inland as Washington D. C. And according to new research, that is precisely what is beginning to happen. (Bryan Walsh, Time, May 2014)
A study led by NASA Sea Level Change Science Team members from the University of Hawaii projects that there will be a surge in coastal flooding starting in the 2030s. A report on NASA’s website states, “The global sea-level rise causing higher seas amplified by the lunar cycle will cause a leap of flood numbers on almost all U.S. mainland coastlines, Hawaii, and Guam.” (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s/)
As a result, every U.S coast will experience rapidly increasing high-tide floods, when a lunar cycle will amplify rising sea levels caused by climate change. It will result in floods the world over.
Devastating Floods Linked
to Climate Change
As predicted, floods have been seen worldwide. The autumn and summers of 2021 have witnessed ravaging and deadly floods, cyclones and hurricanes worldwide. Countries most affected by them include the United States, Mexico, Germany, France, China, India, Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and parts of India, bringing widespread destruction in their wake.
Flash floods occurred in the city of New York in early July 2021. One of the ten most intense cloud bursts in the past 80 years occurred here, resulting in more than an inch and a half of rain to fall within an hour, causing severe damage and submerging parts of the city.
Devastation occurred in China in Zhengzhou, the capital of the Henan province, on Tuesday, 20 July, 2021, due to flooding. In just one hour, a record 7.95 inches of rain fell between 4 and 5 pm, submerging cars, sweeping residents away and filling subway cars packed with commuters with gushing water that reached their necks.” According to The Indian Express, China’s central Henan province witnessed its heaviest rainfall in 1000 years. Officials have stated that Zhengzhou recorded 617.1 mm rainfall from Saturday to Tuesday, nearly the same as the annual average rainfall in the city (640.8 mm).
The widespread flooding in China is in part linked to climate change, said Xuebin Zhang, a senior research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, noting, “We do not usually see that kind of a flood.” He added, “Without climate change, you would not see as much precipitation as you see today. Simply because the air is now hotter and it can hold more moisture, as such it will give you more rain in intense storms than before.”
In India, the heaviest monsoon rains took place in July 2021 in the Mumbai region in decades. A weather station in Mahabaleshwar, recorded 23 inches of rainfall, causing landslides and leaving entire neighbourhoods submerged. (Reuters News Agency Report)
In western Germany and large parts of Europe, heavy floods wiped out villages and reduced some infrastructure to a sea of debris in July 2021. John Butschkowski, a Red Cross driver helping with the German rescue mission, told Reuters, “It is inconceivable that this is happening in Germany.”
Ilan Kelman, a professor of disasters and health at University College London, wrote for The Washington Post this week, “No one should assume that we can ever make our abodes completely fireproof, be ready to evacuate safely while being psychologically and financially prepared to return to only ashes. … We must plan better for floods and build our cities and communities to withstand them.”
According to the FloodList, in France, nearly two months of rain fell in just a few hours in Lot-et-Garonne Department in southwestern France late on 08 September 2021. The streets of the city of Agen were inundated with over 2 meters of water. These floods directly result from global warming as warmer atmospheres retain more moisture that falls as heavy rains.
These floods, climate scientists say, should serve as a wake-up call for leaders to take urgent action on warming temperatures to protect the planet.
Unprecedented Wildfires
Caused by Climate Change
The official Twitter account of United Nations Climate Change written in early July 2021 had predicted that climate change would result in floods in certain parts of the world and heatwaves, drought and wildfires linked to rising temperatures in others, “From unprecedented fires in Western North America to devastating floods in Europe: The most recent and accelerating climate change impacts constitute a clarion call to action.” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/world-floods-climate/)
As predicted, fires are now occurring more frequently and severely in ecosystems that have historically rarely experienced a fire. In 2019, wildfires raged across large swathes of Canada, Siberia, the Mediterranean, and the Amazon. These brought the devastating power and potential threat of fire across the world into focus. An increase in the frequency and intensity of wildfires, especially in ecosystems that are not adapted to fire, could lead to lasting changes in vegetation structure and composition, wildlife populations, soil erosion, and the benefits humans derive from these landscapes.
The Amazon saw a significant uptick in the number of fires across Brazil, Bolivia and Peru (with ~9000 km2 burnt) in 2019 due to human-driven deforestation, logging and exploitation. It in itself is a cause for concern as there are fears that the interaction of deforestation, widespread use of fire for clearing and climate change are pushing this typically wet tropical ecosystem closer to an ecological tipping point, towards a degraded low-carbon savannah system10. It is vital for global sustainability as the Amazon forest is the world’s largest carbon sink, but its capture and storage of carbon dioxide has decreased over the past decades.
As per the Moscow Times, a warming climate combined with a 150-year drought and high winds created the best conditions to turn the taiga forest into fire fuel. This prediction has also come true in the early spring of 2021. Fires are prevalent now, even in the coldest places like Yakutsk, Siberia. Temperatures over the year range between -44 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit in Yakutsk. This past summer, after arid and extremely hot weather patterns, the Saka-Yakutia region reached 102 degrees Fahrenheit, setting records for several consecutive days, per the Associated Press.
It is reported that “A heatwave in one of the world’s coldest regions has sparked forest fires and threatened the Siberian city of Yakutsk.” (Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 20 July, 2021) He states, ‘Everything is on fire’: Siberia hit by unprecedented burning.” A teacher from Yakutsk was also reported to have told ABS News, “Everywhere is burning, and there are not enough people.” These fires are leading to an “airpocalypse” of thick toxic smoke, which is one of the world’s worst-ever air pollution events in the Yakutsk region.
As of August 16, 2021, more than 40 million acres (17 million hectares) have burned, breaking a previous record. … One fire alone scorched an area as wide as 2.5 million acres, reports Ann M. Simmons for the Wall Street Journal. The fires are burning so intensely that a vast swath of smoke blocks sunlight. For the first time in recorded history, smoke from the fires in Siberia have drifted thousands of miles away to reach the North Pole, reports Oliver Carrol for the Independent.
A concerned citizen, Edward Woods, wrote, “This is happening across the globe daily.” It is time we wake up and take note of these devastating effects of climate change.
Science Corroborates
Islamic Predictions of Doomsday
It is generally held that Islam and science are separate from one another, the subject of Islam being different from science subjects. However, there is one respect in which Islam and science completely conform to one another.
Moreover, what science is now making known through its discoveries has already been made known in Islam through revelation. The difference is that Islam had made these predictions about things 15 hundred years ago in the 7th century AD, while science has discovered these same things only in recent centuries and particularly at the beginning of the 21st century.
These predictions include the coming of Doomsday or the end of human history. What is strange about this is that what had been predicted in the Quran and Hadith has only now come to man’s knowledge as facts through scientific observations. The Quran, the revealed book of God, directly addresses this issue. It says:
“Corruption has appeared on land and sea because of the evil which men’s hands have done: and so He will make them taste the fruit of some of their doings, so that they may turn back from evil.” (30:41)
According to the above verse of the Quran, corruption in the land and sea (referring to global warming) is man-made. Scientists from all over the world repeatedly emphasise that global warming is man-made.
The Sixth Assessment of the IPCC Climate Report emphasized that climate change is global and of human origin. The Hindu (August 17, 2021) reports: The impact of climate change on the atmosphere, oceans, and land is unmistakably of human origin, and this impact is picking up pace. It is striking that no part of the inhabited world is now untouched by the impact of global warming.
The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC report in 2007 came under the main heading: ‘Global warming is man-made’. All these reports seem to interpret the above Quranic verse: man-made corruption has spread on land and sea. This report also tells us that the earth’s atmosphere has now heated up to a degree far higher than that of the pre-industrial age. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will soon be doubled.
This report also tells us that the polar ice and the glaciers on the mountains are continuously melting because of this heat. As we all know, there are substantial ice caps at both the north and south poles. These are vast freshwater reservoirs, but they are now melting at an alarming rate. Also, there are substantial mountain-top glaciers—gigantic storehouses of drinking water—which, as a consequence of global warming, are likewise rapidly melting, and their stored water is draining off into the oceans through the rivers.
Due to this, the level of water in the seas is rising. It is feared that this will rise by as much as one metre in the near future, and there will be the risk of the coastal areas being submerged. On the other hand, the non-coastal areas will suffer from an intolerable water shortage.
The report further tells us that the dangerous changes occurring in our world result in irreversible damage. That is, there is no remedy for this process.The report also tells us that, due to these changes, the earth will be hit by draughts, which will seriously affect the life support system. All these occurrences are a direct result of human activities. According to the report, “We are endangering all species on earth; we are endangering the future of the human race.”
What is happening is not simply a matter of climate change. It is, in fact, a warning by the Creator. It is an intimation in advance of something that will occur very shortly. It is meant to bring man to his senses so that he may reform himself and save himself from God’s chastisement.God provided for all kinds of necessary things in this world, but these things were not meant to be luxuries. They were meant, instead, to be merely facilities. For the truth is that God made this world purely as a preparatory ground, and man was required to build in it a heavenly personality so that he might inhabit the next eternal world of Paradise. However, man mistook those things provided by his Maker to be luxuries and, instead of preparing himself for paradise, he began building a ‘paradise’ in this world itself.
God continued to send warnings of different kinds, but man could not be brought to his senses. In this way, he forfeited the justification to stay in this world for a further period in the eyes of God. Now the time has come when this world should be terminated, and man should be brought to book and be held accountable on the Day of Judgement.
Predictions of Global Warming
In several places, the Quran has recorded that certain signs indicating its approach will appear before Doomsday. The change in the earth that has been predicted in different verses of the Quran will probably not be sudden but will instead be gradual. Today this is happening. It is noteworthy that extraordinary progress has been made in different fields in the present times, which have enabled man to understand the changes over a period of time, whereas it has not hitherto been possible for a man to observe these changes. That is, on the one hand, God will bring about eye-opening changes through advanced news of Doomsday, while precisely at the same time He will provide man with modern scientific methods by which he may directly learn about these changes.
By the beginning of the 21st century, scientists worldwide had become unanimous in their warning that the earth was changing rapidly as a result of global warming and climatic changes. Recently, the American Science Magazine published one such report by James Hansen (67), a top scientist who is Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. A summary of this report was published in The Times of India, New Delhi, on April 9, 2008, under the caption “Earth in Crisis.” According to this report (p. 35), “we have already reached a dangerous level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
The news given by scientists regarding the disturbance of the balance governing the life support systems on earth is based not on theoretical calculations or conjecture but rather on the information garnered from observations. In our times, the latest scientific methods have been employed to enable continuous study and observation based on which these reports have been published in the media. All such information is of a kind that is accessible to anyone with a scientific background.
The traditions of the Prophet of Islam have predicted such occurrences.
- According to a Hadith, “When the Qiyamah approaches, the sun will come closer to man.” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 17439) As a result of this, great heat will be generated on earth. This hadith tells us precisely what we have been told in the report.
The sun coming closer does not mean that the distance between the sun and the earth will become less, for in such a case, life on earth would immediately come to an end. This coming closer is symbolic of the sun’s heat becoming more intense, thereby raising the temperature, thus, predicting global warming.
- What will happen to man when the sun’s heat increases? It has been expressed thus in the hadith: “The people will be sweating. Some will sweat till their ankles, some till their knees, others till their waist and yet others till their faces.” (Sahih Muslim, Hadith No. 2864)
The Arabic word araq in this tradition, which means sweat, literally means ‘squeezed water’. Sweat is called araq because it squeezes [or oozes] out of the human body. That is why the wine which is squeezed out of grapes is also called araq. This tradition, in fact, symbolically tells us that during the last days, when the sun’s heat will increase and the glaciers of ice and the ice sheets at the polar caps of the Arctic and Antarctica will start melting then the sea level will rise. As a result, the coastal settlements will be submerged in seawater. Some areas will be submerged, while others will be less affected, depending upon the altitude of the landmass affected. Now both revealed, and scientific knowledge has confirmed that Doomsday is near.
Climate Change, Earthquakes and Doomsday
Climate changes triggered geological mayhem. As the kilometres-thick Scandinavian ice sheet vanished, the faults beneath released the accumulated strain of tens of millennia, spawning massive magnitude eight earthquakes.
Andrea Hampel of the University of Hannover’s Geological Institute, who with colleagues has been studying earthquake activity, says, “future ice loss may trigger earthquakes of intermediate to large magnitude if the crust underneath the modern ice cap contains faults prone to failure”.
Scientific studies reveal that where an earthquake fault or volcanic activity is primed and ready to go, climate change may provide that extra helping hand that brings forward the timing of a quake or eruption that would eventually have happened. In keeping with these scientific predictions, earthquakes have occurred with greater frequency worldwide. The number of noticeable earthquakes has been increasing year after year since 2017 in the important oil-producing regions of the U.S., according to an analysis by an independent energy research firm. The National Earthquake Information Center now locates about 20,000 earthquakes around the globe each year or approximately 55 per day.
On the 26th December 2004, an undersea earthquake in Indonesia resulted in a tsunami which caused heavy damage and loss of life in South Asian coastal cities. Another earthquake that remains fresh in recent memory is the one that devastated the Chinese province of Sichuan, killing almost 70,000 people in May 2008.
On March 4, 2021, a series of earthquakes occurred in the Kermadec Islands, New Zealand, with magnitudes of 8.1 and 7.4 at 19:28:31 UTC. The list of earthquakes that have shaken the earth in 2021 is many. It seems that earthquakes are becoming a frequent occurrence.
An earthquake occurred off the coast of the Alaska Peninsula on July 28, 2021, of a magnitude of 8.2 according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), followed by many aftershocks, including three that were of magnitude 5.9, 6.1 and 6.9, respectively.
Early in the morning of August 14, 2021, an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.2 rocked Haiti, causing homes, schools and hospitals to collapse, claiming hundreds of lives, and nearly 1.2 million people affected and leaving communities in crisis.
On September 5, 2021, an earthquake measuring five on the Richter Scale jolted Yecheng County of Kashgar Prefecture in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. On September 8, 2021, an earthquake occurred near Acapulco in Guerrero, Mexico, of a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale, causing landslides, gas leaks and killing many.
Such earthquakes occur almost every day in varying degrees of intensity, some regions being more prone to earthquakes than others.
The earthquake is one terrestrial phenomenon that most forewarns us of the advent of Doomsday. Anomalies in the organisation of the present set-up of the universe, which periodically result in minor calamities, indicate what is going to happen on a large scale in the future.
The earth’s interior is composed of red-hot semi-molten magma, which is ejected periodically through volcanic activity in the form of lava. Sometimes also, strong movements of the earth’s crust can be felt. These are produced by the movement of the plates of the earth’s crust due to continental drift. From time to time, the movement of the earth’s surface assumes gigantic proportion and the resulting earthquakes are like a unilateral attack of nature upon man in which nature has the upper hand.
According to a tradition, Prophet Muhammad said, “The Hour (Last Day) will not be established until earthquakes will be very frequent. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 1036)
In light of the above tradition, we studied seismic activity over the last century and found that the world has witnessed a substantial increase in earthquakes. According to long-term records, since about 1900, the average number of major earthquakes per year has been 16. These usually include 15 earthquakes in the magnitude seven range and one earthquake having a magnitude of 8.0 or greater. The records of the past 40-50 years reveal that we have exceeded the long-term average number of significant earthquakes about a dozen times. Earthquakes are increasing all around the world.
The above tradition relates earthquakes with Doomsday, as an Earthquake is, in fact, a small reminder of the day of resurrection. A surge the earth is split asunder with a terrible rumbling; when buildings come tumbling down like playing cards; when the upper layers of the earth are cracked open, and the interior of the earth is spewed out, when cities bustling with life are reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes; when the earth is strewn with dead bodies, like shoals of fish washed up on the sea coast, man realises his utter helplessness in the face of nature. What is most tragic about earthquakes and volcanic eruptions is that no one can predict when or where they will take place. Moreover, everything happens in a flash when they do, leaving little or no time for escape. The day of the resurrection will come upon us all of a sudden, just like an earthquake. Such natural catastrophes demonstrate, most awesomely, God’s capacity to destroy the earth at any moment.
Even more terrifying events take place in the outer reaches of the universe. In the infinitude of space are enormous celestial bodies in continuous motion. There are so many of them that they are in danger of colliding with each other. Studies in astronomy have confirmed that this is an actual possibility - it would not be surprising if they collide. What is surprising is that they do not collide. Our Solar System may well result from a collision of this type. If we can visualize such a collision taking place on a greatly enlarged scale, the day of resurrection will no longer seem impossible, nor even such a remote possibility as we had perhaps at first imagined.
Believers in the concept of life hereafter contend that a time is bound to come when the forces of destruction present in the universe in the embryonic form will one day assume gigantic proportions. What is latent today will undoubtedly be manifest tomorrow, and the coming of the day of resurrection will be a reality. Today we apprehend it as a probability; tomorrow, we shall witness it as fact. Man needs to prepare for the coming of Doomsday in the hereafter when he can in this world of test.
Clouds of Dukhan (Smoke) from East to West
In another tradition, the Prophet of Islam mentioned ten indicators signalling the approach of Doomsday, one of the last being smoke (dukhan):
Hudhaifa bin Usaid al-Ghifari reported: “God’s Messenger said: The Last Hour will not come until you see ten signs before and (in this connection) he made a mention of the smoke. (Sahih Muslim, Hadith No. 2901)
The same is predicted in the Quran in these words: “Watch out for the day when the sky brings out visible clouds of smoke (dukhan) that will envelop the people. This will be a painful punishment.” (The Quran, 44:10-11)
The above Quranic verse and various traditions of the Prophet of Islam predict visible clouds of dukhan or smoke as one of the significant signs of the coming of Doomsday.
The 21st century is witnessing a substantial increase in volcanic activity. Scientists found that volcanic eruptions increased as the climate became hotter, “After glaciers are removed the surface pressure decreases, and the magma more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.” (Email of Graeme Swindles, the University of Leeds to Scientific American) Therefore, scientists are also confirming that global warming leads to increased volcanic activity in the form of lava and ash that leads to ‘a thick visible smoke in the sky.’
On 14 April 2010, a volcano erupted suddenly from beneath the glaciers in Iceland, an island in the North Atlantic about 200 miles southeast of Greenland. So much ash was emitted that it spread throughout the major part of Europe’s atmosphere. Darkness enveloped the entire region leading to the grounding of thousands of flights in the region.
The ash seen from satellite images appears to be ‘a visible cloud of smoke.’ Therefore, the ash thrown up by the volcanic eruption may be the smoke predicted in the Quran and Hadith traditions. On 19th September 2021, the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma, sending lava shooting into the air and streaming in rivers towards houses in two villages from the Cumbre Vieja national park in the south of the island. (“Lava pours out of the volcano on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands”, Reuters, September 20, 2021) Plumes of thick, black smoke blocking the sun above the island are seen in the images, captured by a satellite of the U.S. Earth observation company Maxar Technologies on Thursday (October 14), indicating that iron mixed with magma is rising from the Cumbre Vieja volcano crater. The Instituto Volcanológico de Canarias (INVOLCAN) suggested that the current eruption could persist for weeks to months. (NASA Earth Observatory, October 4, 2021)
A tradition of the Prophet of Islam states that the smoke will last for forty days:
“There will be smoke (dukhan) that fills the space from east to west and will last forty days.” (Tafsir al-Tabari, Vol. 21, p. 19)
According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), the cloud of smoke emitted by the La Palma volcano is spreading over Europe, reaching altitudes of up to 3.1 miles (5 kilometres). It is expected to cross Europe from west to east over the coming days, CAMS senior scientist Mark Parrington said on Twitter.
Japan’s volcanic Mount Aso started erupting on Wednesday, 20th October 2021, blasting ash several miles into the sky. According to ABC News, a massive column of grey smoke is billowing into the sky (20th October 2021). Television networks broadcast images of a dark cloud of ash looming over the volcano that quickly obscured large swathes of the mountain.
According to a hadith, “smoke will rise before Doomsday which will fill the east and the west.” (Al-Sunan al-waridah fı al-fitan by Al-Danı, Vol. 5, p. 1108)
This tradition refers to spreading a cloud of smoke from east to west. The plume of thick clouds of volcanic ash spreading in the east in Japan and the west in the Spanish Canary Islands. An October 22nd report showing live drone footage of Mount Aso, under the title, “Dukhan hits Japan”, showed eruptions sending stones tumbling down and plumes of ash rain clouds 3,500 meters high. The Japan Meteorological Agency raised the warning level for Mount Aso to three on a scale of five.
Another volcanic eruption started on 20 December 2021 on Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai, a submarine volcano in the Tongan Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. Its climax was witnessed on 15 January 2022 in the form of a cataclysmic explosion. The 8-minute eruption sent plumes of ash soared to a height of at least 30 kilometres, well into the upper atmosphere, or stratosphere, which is the highest plume in satellite records, according to NASA. Being the largest volcanic eruption in the 21st century, it caused a sonic boom that was heard more than 10,000 kilometres away in the US state of Alaska and the UK. Reverberations from the eruption circled the globe multiple times in the atmosphere and the oceans, causing a tsunami affecting the shores of Australia, the US and Russia. NASA concluded that the explosion was “hundreds of times more powerful” than the first atomic bomb.
The Tongan volcano blast sent shock waves around the globe and defied scientific expectations.”
(www.nature.com, February 9, 2022) Nico Fournier, a volcanologist at GNS Science in Taupo, New Zealand, said that it just basically rips the Band-Aid on our lack of understanding of what is happening underwater: There are huge pieces of this puzzle that we have not quite managed to pull together. Scientists have predicted supervolcanic eruptions which will spread very thick clouds of volcanic ash, which will fill a large part of the earth.
If we stop and ponder that these predictions made 1500 years ago in the 7th century are being realised in the 21st century, we will discover the Creator of the world as only He could have foreseen these events and predicted them as the signs of Doomsday.
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 that will appear is perhaps the rising of the sun from the West. The Angel Israfeel will then blow the trumpet at some point.
God sends such calamities 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 warnings. 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.
Global Warming or Divine Warning?
The earth is a unique planet in the vast Universe. It provides exceptionally everything that is required to support life. It has enabled human beings to inhabit it and develop civilisations. However, according to the Quran, this state of affairs will not last forever.
A time will come when the earth will lose all its greenery and vegetation and become an arid waste. This will happen sometime before Doomsday. According to the Quran:
“We have adorned the earth with attractive things, so that We may test mankind as to which one is best in conduct, but We shall reduce all this to barren waste.” (18:7-8) It was a very distant prediction in the first quarter of the 7th century AD when this verse was revealed in the Quran. However, the scientific observations about the earth tell us that this destined end of the earth has already begun. Recent satellite observations of the earth from space tell us that the water system on our planet has been seriously disturbed and that the earth is fast heading towards its end.
This is what the Quran means by a “barren waste”. We learn from the Quran and Hadith that the present world is not eternal. A time will come when this world will be wound up and replaced by another world that will be eternal. There are such signs in the present world as lead scientists to conclude that the end of history has come very close. Now, through purely scientific surveys, the revelation has been confirmed that the world has, in reality, reached the last stage of its existence.
Scientific studies have underscored those signs predicted in the Quran and Hadith.
