Abdul Alim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Posted on Sun, Jan. 23, 2005
Tsunami survivors turn to religion in coping
FAITH:The people of Aceh do not blame or reject God; their belief is unshaken amid the devastation left by the natural disasters.
BY BEN STOCKING
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The biblical devastation unleashed across northwestern Sumatra by the Dec. 26 tsunami sent the people of Aceh province to a predictable place: their religion. As people have done through the centuries, the Acehnese are turning to their faith as a tool to help them fathom the unfathomable -- and to endure the unendurable.
"Throughout history, whenever there is a calamity of this magnitude, people turn to religion and God," said Amjad Mehboob, chief executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. "They turn to the creator for help and for mercy."
The tsunami tragedy raises an age-old question and seeming contradiction. How can a beneficent God inflict something so horrible on so many thousands of people?
For the people of Aceh, almost all of whom are Muslim, there is no contradiction. Allah is all-compassionate, and also all-knowing.
Many of the victims were among the world's most vulnerable people -- subsistence farmers and fishermen, their wives and their children. The orphaned and the destitute have been wandering the province by the tens of thousands, looking for lost relatives who were sucked out to sea.
In Banda Aceh, the capital of the province hit hardest by the tsunami, the survivors did not complain. Even those with agonizing injuries and no access to pain relief suffered with a dignity that is as hard to describe as the devastation left behind by the tsunami.
One after another, they attributed their serenity to God.
Like Teuku Zahria, who lost his brother and his home, the survivors sustained themselves by praying to Allah and helping others in need.
"I cried for three days after the tsunami came," said Zahria, 55. "Then I decided it is better to pitch in than to cry."
Zahria found an unusual way to ease his pain: pulling dead bodies from the mud and debris left in the tsunami's wake.
A devout Muslim, he considers this a duty to the community and to the dead.
"If something happens to our brothers and sisters, we must help them," Zahria said as he stood by three bodies lying on the side of the road, wrapped in plastic sheets.
He wore plastic flip-flops and no gloves. His feet and hands were covered with black grime.
"We can't run away from people who need us," Zahria said.
To a nonbeliever, the catalog of horrors unleashed by the tsunami was more than enough evidence to prove that a benevolent God could not possibly exist. But there was no sign of people who said they had lost their faith in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Instead, Nabahani, a leader at the refugee camp, said the earthquake and tsunami have strengthened the refugees' belief in Allah.
"God is trying to test us," Nabahani said. "We must get closer to him. We must be strong. We must pray more. We must read the Quran more."
The Acehnese embrace a mystical, Sufi-based strain of Islam that is tolerant of other religions and does not focus on casting blame, said Greg Barton, a professor at Deakin University in Australia who has been studying Islam and politics in Indonesia for 16 years.
They are poor. Infant mortality is high, and chronic health problems are widespread. They know that death is ever-present and inescapable.
"They are untroubled by one of life's great paradoxes," Barton said. "Why in a world with a good, all-powerful God do bad things happen to good people?"
Their faith tells them to accept God's will, move ahead and try to live the best life they can.
The tsunami tossed huge chunks of concrete; being submerged in it was like being in a washing machine full of bricks. The raging waters tossed Yusrizal on top of a coconut palm, leaving him with a broken neck. Last week, he lay in a Banda Aceh hospital bed. "I feel sad, but I accept my fate," Yusrizal said. "I put myself in God's hands."
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