Natural Disasters and Religion: Kahramanmaras Earthquake on February 6 in the Context of Islamic Thought Doğal Afetler ve Din: İslam Düşüncesi Bağlamında 6 Şubat Kahramanmaraş Depremi

Natural events are extraordinary natural events as old as world history. These events are called disasters if they bring about a change in the societies in which they occur. This change may differ according to societies; moreover, it occurs in economic, sociological, psychological, political, religious, and legal fields in general terms. As well as the difference in the change caused by natural disasters in society, there are also differences in coping, fighting, and accepting the said change. Man is an emotional creature by nature. Therefore, due to natural disasters, they receive some help to cope with the process. These benefits range from cultural activities, health care, sports activities, or religious beliefs. In this study, we tried to express how individuals who experienced the earthquake managed the process, and how and to what extent they benefited from religion in the face of the disaster. Since religions are as old as human history and, therefore, there are too many religious thoughts, we limited our study to the religion of Islam. In this respect, first of all, we studied the verses of the Qur’an, which refer to disasters, and the hadiths of Prophet Muhammad, the prophet of the Islam religion, about disasters. Then we did a literature study related to our subject. Based on the primary sources of the religion of Islam and related studies, we briefly discussed the approach of Islam to natural disasters at the theoretical level. On the main focus of our study, we included Kahramanmaras province, Pazarcık centered earthquake that occurred on February 6, 2023, which was described as the disaster of the century and affected 11 provinces. After the earthquake in question, we tried to determine how the earthquake survivors coped with the earthquake, whether they received support from their religious beliefs in this process, and whether there was any change in their religious thoughts with the structured interview method. In our study process, we interviewed 20 people. Since we limited the theoretical part of our study to the religion of Islam, we limited our interview study to Muslims and limited our fieldwork to Gaziantep province. In this context, we have determined that the majority of the disaster victims associate the earthquake with the idea of destiny, and that the idea that it is a predestination of Allah is dominant. However, we encountered Muslims who did not associate the earthquake with religion, and we stated their reasons in our study. Our research is important in terms of revealing Islam's approach to natural disasters and Muslims' methods of coping with disasters. Here, we should also state that in the literature review, we have done on the subject, we have noticed that psychology studies are in the majority. Since we are trying to examine natural disasters and especially earthquakes in terms of the sociology of religion, we believe that our research has special importance in terms of eliminating a deficiency in the field.