Islamic Perceptions of the Pandemic: between Divine Decree and Political Plot

Abstract

The paper begins with a quick examination of the Islamic medical tradition, and then moves on to analyze the reactions on the Arab mass media to the Coronavirus epidemic. From an analysis of various Arab mass media we have been able to observe that part of the Arab world have described the epidemic as a Western conspiracy following the most varied conspiracy theories based on anti-Western sentiments. The paper reports opinions taken from Arab newspapers and broadcasts from different areas of the Arab world and from different orientations. Then the study continues with the analysis of the reactions of the most important jihadist groups as well as the area of political Islām. We can note that the vision on the pandemic carried out by jihadist groups, permeated by anti-Western sentiments, in particular anti-American ones, is fundamentally based on the narrative of divine punishment, with extensive use of prophetic hadīth and Koranic verses, extrapolated without contextualization. Through the analysis of various jihadist writings we can see how their narrative has taken on political traits, exploiting the epidemic to challenge local governments as well as attack the United States. The study ends with the analysis of the positions of the area of political Islām, in this case of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, close to the thought of the more moderate sectors of the Muslim Brotherhood. Through this analysis it emerges how the idea that Covid was a divine decree or a political plot and the politicization of the virus represents a clear break with the ancient Islamic tradition in the medical field. Even from the approach taken towards the pandemic we can therefore observe how Wahhabism and Salafism have brought back the Arab and Islamic world which in its tradition was instead often characterized by a rationalist and pragmatic vision towards worldly and scientific issues.