What is the Ruling on Attributing Nature to Natural Disasters?
Uploaded Jun 24, 2024
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Question
A person says to his friend: "Did you hear about the earthquake caused by nature in so and so land?" His friend answered: "Nature has no mental faculties."
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Sheikh Ibn Baz
Yes, this is incorrect, the statement nature made or nature did. This is wrong. Nature is nothing. Nature is a characteristic of mankind. Everything has a nature; water has a nature, fire has a nature, and a human has a nature. So, nature is a characteristic that is dependent on other things.
However, it is from people's ignorance and blind following. This person is ignorant and the other is a blind-follower. There is no such thing as nature that does something. It is only a characteristic that is inherent to the one described. The nature of fire is that it burns. The nature of water is that it is a liquid. The nature of man is like this and the nature of other animals is like that.
Likewise, everything has a nature that's specific to it, Allāh the Exalted made and created it upon (this nature). The Creator is Allāh alone, He is Al-Khallaq, Al-'Aleem,
"Surely, His is the Creation and Commandment." [Al-A'rāf: 54]
"Allāh is the Creator of all things." [Az-Zumar: 62]
There is nothing that has the ability to create other than Allāh, whether its nature or something else. Nature is an intrinsic characteristic, and this is what many of the people of falsehood and deviance/atheism say (i.e., nature did), and those who are ignorant mimic them.