Typhoon Haiyan cut a path across eastern and central Philippines on November 8; I listened to the somber voices of news reporters as they described the chaos and despair that follows a disaster of this magnitude. Disheveled looking survivors would pop up on the screen for a minute or two, having been asked by the news stations to share their stories. Most either wept or looked shell-shocked as they described the typhoon’s roaring winds, driving rains and a 12 feet high storm surge that swept away homes like tumbleweeds and sucked people out to sea. Those who had clung to something—anything—and managed to remain conscious and alive now sat in schools which, sturdier than the homes that had surrounded them, served as makeshift refugee centers. I quickly switched the channel to something less depressing and put the disaster out of my mind.
Over the coming days, numbers began to roll in. Counting the dead in the Philippines is grim, slow, and frustratingly inexact work, but news stations did come to a consensus on the number of people affected by the storm—13 million Filipinos found themselves injured, homeless or searching for loved ones’ bodies. Of these, five million were children. A guilt born of apathy began to nag at my conscience.
A few nights ago, my husband was sitting in the family room armchair, reading Qur’an aloud. I plunked down in front of him, tightly wrapped our well-worn blue blanket around myself, closed my eyes and listened. The undulating rhythm of the Arabic verses felt soothing, so much so that I began to feel drowsy. When my husband finished, tucking the silk ribbon between the pages to mark his place, I asked him to read the English translation of the verses he had been reciting. When he came to one sentence in particular, we both looked at one another.
…righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help]… (2:177).
Right now the orphans, the needy and the ones pleading for help were the typhoon survivors. The verse shook us out of our lethargy and we sat down in front of the computer to make a donation. When the charity we had selected prompted us to type in the amount we would like to give, we paused for a moment.
“How many Muslims are in the Philippines?” I wondered aloud. Immediately, I felt a sense of shame wash over me. Had I just suggested that the number of Muslims devastated by the typhoon should dictate how deeply we dig into our pockets— in other words, the more the Muslims, the higher our donation? I suppose it is natural to feel a greater bond with those who share your faith, in the same way that you feel a stronger surge of compassion towards a family member or friend’s suffering than you do a stranger’s. Still, this doesn’t mean we should ignore or even minimize the pain of someone with whom we can’t easily identify.
A hadith came to mind. ‘Ibn Abu Laila reported: Sahl ibn Hunaif and Qais ibn Sa’d ibn Ubaidah were in Al-Qadisiyyah when a funeral passed by them, so they stood up and it was said to them, “It is one of the local people.” They both said: A funeral passed by the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and he stood up. It was said to him, “It is a Jew.” So the Prophet said, “Was he not a soul?”’(Sahih Bukhari 1250, Sahih Muslim 961)
The heartbroken, homeless men, women and children in the Philippines are Allah’s creations, the same as my husband and myself. They too have souls. Regardless of their belief systems, it is incumbent upon me as a Muslim to help them if I can. That is what Allah will ask my soul in the afterlife. We settled on an amount and clicked “Donate.”
