The Corona virus pandemic is unarguably the deadliest and the most dangerous pandemic in human history. This sort of pandemic has got no mention in the recorded human history. Although the number of victims so far is less than other global pandemics of human history, such as the Black Death and the Spanish Flu, nevertheless, there is no precedent for this pandemic in human history in terms of the area affected. No country or region in the world today is considered safe from its grip.
The corona virus has completely turned human life upside down. There is no area of human life that has not been affected by this pandemic, be it human mobility, trade, economy, education, travel and recreation, industry and crafts, religious worship and places of worship, all have been affected by the wrath of this virus. Under the lockdown, bazaars, malls, educational institutions, places of worship, travel and entertainment were all closed and every place and institution is locked. The streets are deserted; the markets are vacant; places of worship are vacant of worshipers. The stillness is everywhere. It seems as if human life had come to a standstill.
Lockdowns and curfews have had devastating effects on the global economy. According to the IMF, the current global economic slowdown is the fastest slowdown since the Great Depression of 1930. Unemployment is on the rise everywhere. More than 40 lakh people have lost their jobs in India so far due to Corona, and the unemployment rate here had reached 27% in May itself. In April alone, nearly 20 million people in the United States applied to the government for unemployment benefits. This is more or less the case in every country in the world. It is not possible to estimate the real damage caused by spread of this global pandemic. According to the United Nations, the spread of the corona virus is not only a health tragedy but also a human, economic and social tragedy.
The most affected class of society by this pandemic is the labour class, whose source of livelihood is daily earnings. This class is present in large numbers in India in the form of migrant workers. Scenes of hardship faced by this class due to lockdown on TV and the Internet shook the human heart and mind. At the same time, there are scenes that show that humanity is not perished yet. At both the individual and collective levels, people generously reached out to the needy and provided them with the necessary assistance on the humanitarian basis, regardless of religion, caste and creed.
Circumstances indicate that this pandemic is not going to end soon. This whole matter could drag on for years, as both the severity and frequency of the pandemic are increasing rapidly. According to the World Health Organization, this pandemic will never end, but will continue to afflict humans, just like any other disease. However, extreme caution is needed in this regard. Experts say that the world after the corona virus will be completely different from the one before it, in all senses political, social and economic. This has been described by some as the introduction of a new world order. In any case, no one but Allah knows when the situation will improve and what changes will take place on global scale in this regards.
I have been studying and researching the scientific signs of the doomsday for more than a decade. A series of about 30 articles penned by me under the title “Climate Change and Doomsday” have been published in Urdu, Arabic and English in national and international magazines so far. And much of it is still yet to be published. All these researches have been published in the Tamer-e-Fikr magazine in both Urdu and English.
In February and March of this year, when the threat of the corona virus began to spread globally from China, I was convinced that the Qur’an and the Hadith which contain numerous signs of the Hour, both small and large, this global crisis must have also been mentioned that has befallen the whole world today. Therefore, I began to re-read and sift through all the books of hadith, and at the same time I kept on praying to Allah Almighty to guide me to success in this regard.
By the grace of Almighty, I have achieved great success in this regard. I have found out dozens of hadiths in this regard in which the manifestation of corona virus has been mentioned in one way or the other. A study of these hadiths shows that the emergence of the coronavirus is in fact appearance of a great sign of the Hour. These hadiths prophesize the emergence of a great global threat, such as this coronavirus, which will engulf the entire world. Various attributes and aspects of coronavirus have been described in these hadiths in great detail in a very beautiful way.
Alhamdulillah! When this research of mine was published in the newspapers and magazines of the subcontinent and especially on our social media platform, we received innumerable letters of support, messages and phone calls from all around the world. Four video documentaries have also been made on this research and published on our Youtube Channel Furqania Channnel.
It has been translated into several languages and has been widely acknowledged. This entire research work is being published in Tameer-e-Fikr in both Urdu and English.