On Governor Yari's statement about sin and new diseases, does science have an opposing fact?
I'll start by asking a few questions, which I'll answer.
1. What is the origin of Ebola virus?
According to whatever source you can get, The natural reservoir for Ebola has yet to be confirmed; however, bats are considered to be the most LIKELY candidate species. That's what science can offer for now, but even if we agree that bats harbour ebolavirus, and say the first case was due to a local coming in contact with an infected bat, where do you hide the fact that locals in those countries have been hunting wild animals and eating bats since time immemorial, and the first case was just in 1976? Oh it must have been sudden mutation of the virus.
2. What is the origin of HIV? I mean the virus itself.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease in 1981 when increasing numbers of young homosexual men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies (CDC 1981 ; Greene 2007 ). HIV-1 and HIV-2 were the result of zoonotic transfers of viruses infecting primates in Africa (Hahn et al. 2000). genetic changes are believed to have occurred as SIVs crossed from monkeys to apes and from apes to humans with successful host switches
There's a common trait in those researches, and it's that pathogens of new diseases are linked to RELATED types in animals. But the question is why are they just surfacing? when in fact, humans' contacts with wild animals were more in the early years than now. According to World Health Organization, "At least 30 NEW diseases have emerged in the last 20 years and now together threaten the health of hundreds of millions of people. For many of these diseases, there is no treatment, cure or vaccine."
"We are standing on the brink of a global crisis in infectious diseases. No country is safe from them. No country can any longer afford to ignore their threat," the Director-General of WHO, Dr Hiroshi Nakajima, says in a report.
If we like, let's kill all the wild animals in the world, and continue in our lewdness, new diseases will still appear, but I'm sure we'll find something else to attribute them to, maybe a river reservoir.
The prophet said "Immorality never appears among a people to such an extent that they commit it openly, but plagues and diseases that were never known among the predecessors will spread among them.." hadith
The prophet (s.a.w) didn't say God will come down to plant a disease among them, the physical source or causative agent was not stated, but they would be new diseases not known among them before.
If Gov. Yari was negligent of the spread, that's his fault and he should be blamed, but calling him an ignoramus because of that statement makes you the ignoramus.
Narrated Saud:
The Prophet said, "If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it; but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place."(bukhari)
That's another instruction from the same person to prevent spread, or provide containment for an outbreak, irrespective of the cause.
If it were non Muslims alone who were mocking yari statement, I'd probably not have worried, those who believe that before God could forgive people's sins, he had to come down to be killed by the same people as sacrifice for themselves so that he can then forgive them, why should opinions of those people about God bother me? But that of supposed learned Muslims trying to sound refined is laughable.
Jabir reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “ Every disease has a cure. If a cure is applied to the disease, then it is relieved by the permission of Allah the Exalted .”
Source: Muslim 2204
Rufaidah received her training and knowledge in medicine from her father, a physician , whom she assisted regularly. she was given permission by the Prophet (s.a.w) to set up a tent outside the mosque to treat the ill and to train more Muslim women and girls as nurses. Whichever way you view it, Islam is balanced enough. If you want to be an atheist, and see everything in the 'physical view', be. If you want to be a Muslim, be. Don't laugh at authentic statements of the prophet or verses of the Qur'an because your small brain thinks the world has advanced past that stage.