BASICS OF ISLAM : Dabbat al Ard.Part2
To make claims of the sort just illustrated can be harmful. To do so without knowledge and understanding of the essential truth of the matter in question is surely wrong. Besides, none of the findings of scientific research are ever absolute. Neither the procedures of research, nor the processes of reasoning about the results of research, are free from error. Indeed, the most widely accepted position among scientists themselves is that the best to be hoped for from science is the gradual elimination, one by one, of past and present errors. Extreme positivist or rationalist doctrines are now generally rejected. It seems most improper, therefore, to seek to understand or explain the Qur'an or hadith on the basis of what is, at best, uncertain and hypothetical, and quite possibly false. The great volume of articles and books produced in this vein in recent times will be open to ridicule in the future. To be sure, there is a reward for sincerity and good intention; but what if sincerity and good intention result in weakening faith and practice instead of strengthening them? What if they lead to Muslims being embarrassed and mocked on account of the naiveté of the arguments put forward on behalf of Islam? It is our view that people who have approached the subject of HIV in this way have erred.
It is surely wiser, worthier in intention and result, to tackle such subjects from a broad, traditionally Islamic perspective. Arguments that do so, however "old" remain fresh, light and appealing. The scope and manner of their explanations maintain a link with the general truths of Islam. Precisely for that reason, they are able to embrace the realities specific to particular circumstances and are therefore always relevant and enlightening. By contrast, arguments that bow to the agenda of modern circumstances are (when they are not wrong to start with) soon out of date.
The traditional teaching begins from the belief that God is, and Muhammad is His Messenger. It proceeds to explain how particular events or entities in the universe, from the smallest to the largest, affirm that belief. That is wholly different from the approach that begins with the assertion of the so-called truths of science, and then hopes, on the basis of such weak, insecure foundations, to build understanding and knowledge of the Creator and the teaching of His Messenger.
I do not doubt that the Muslims who try to reconcile current knowledge and current events with the Qur'an and hadith are well-intentioned. In doing this, they mean to affirm the statements of the Qur'an and hadith. As against certain attitudes provoked by over-confidence in the natural sciences, in positivism and rationalism, they aim to demonstrate that Qur'an and hadith do not contradict but concur with the results of experimentally verified scientific inquiry. They hope to communicate something about Islam to those scholars, thinkers and their students, whose world-view is too narrowly circumscribed by the norms and procedures of scientific investigation. For the reasons explained above, their efforts are sure to receive some criticism in the future. However, to say that their approach is totally or only harmful would be an ill-considered and hasty judgment. The wisdom of Qur'an and hadith do not need any external support—their authority, soundness, and rightness appeal directly and naturally to human intuition and conscience. That said, we should not over-criticize sincere efforts to present additional, external evidence that tries to get rid of the dust that prevents our poor minds from grasping the correspondences or compatibilities between the absolute truths of Islam and the insecure "truths" of science; but what we must, and do, reject is that the truth of Qur'an and hadith should be made to depend upon verification and confirmation by scientific data which are, as explained above, incomplete, disconnected from the meaning and purpose of life as a whole, and vulnerable to change as the borders of human ignorance change.
Let me now turn to the matter of HIV in relation to dabbat al-ard.
Dabbat al-ard
The phrase occurs both in the Qur'an and hadith. Dabba connotes any entity that creeps, crawls or moves upon the earth on its legs. God describes in the Qur'an all species of animate (moving) creatures of the earth as dabba:
God has created every being (creature) from water: of them there are some that creep on their bellies; some that walk on two legs; and some that walk on four. God creates what He wills. For God has power over all things. (Nur 24:45)
From its use in its context, we see that dabba could refer to any of the creatures known to humankind, from micro-organisms to dinosaurs. Yet, there are some that are not known to us, and still others that God will create in the future, as He wills. The HIV virus which leads to AIDS may be among those micro-organisms which have recently become known.
The term is used again, in other Qur'anic verses, when God affirms that He provides sustenance for each of the creatures of the earth. For example:
There is no moving creature on earth but its sustenance depends on God . . . . (Hud 11:6)
How many are the creatures that carry not their own sustenance. It is God who feeds both them and you . . . (Ankabut 29:60)
But the dabba mentioned in the question occurs in this verse in the chapter Naml:
And when the word is fulfilled against them (the unjust), We shall produce from the earth a dabba (beast) to face them. It will speak to them, because humankind did not believe with assurance in our signs. (Naml 27:82)
The "when" to which the verse alludes is that time when the task for which all creatures were created, namely to display the Names and Attributes of God, is concluded, and the earth is no longer needed to serve as an arena of exhibition. Such an exhibition was held because God wills Himself to be known and affirmed. When God is not known and humanity turns away from His signs and rejects the Truth, when the believers, gradually decreasing in number, are finally no more, and the corrupted world is no longer needed, God will decree both human beings and the world to be destroyed. In order to fulfill this decree, God will produce a dabba, which speaks, from the earth. Whether it speaks by voice or gesture or by some other means, it will tell that there will no longer be sincere believers in the signs of God from then on. That is, the appearance of dabba will signify that the quality of belief and of believers will no longer improve, but rather decay and weaken and eventually become extinct. Moreover, the fact that the verses alluding to Resurrection come just after the verse just quoted indicates that dabbat al-ard is among the most important and last of the signs of the end of the world.
Dabbat al-ard is one, probably the last, of the ten signs of the Last Day. Study of the verse in its context, makes it clear that all Islamic life, movements and values, will come to an end, new believers will not succeed those before them, and those who believe in God will lack conviction and certainty (yaqin). One explanation is that science and philosophy will have progressed so far, such enthralling technological inventions and discoveries will have been made—human beings, keen on "creating" something, will have attempted to manufacture human beings; they will have produced robots and tried to deliver the administration of affairs to them—that the world will be filled with individuals claiming (and believing) that "I created this or that." And people who make such a claim can never attain certainty (yaqin) in their faith and knowledge of God. That is a part of what could be inferred from the full context of the verse.
Dabbat al-ard occurs in the hadiths of the Prophet with the same general meaning as in the Qur'an. The hadithspoint out the things dabba will do, such as: "Dabba will emerge, travel all over the earth and be seen everywhere . . ."
Now as to whether dabbat al-ard has anything to do with HIV:
