Islamic Virtues and not Vaccines are the Strongest Defense against Monkeypox Virus

On 23 July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) finally declared the Monkeypox outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern.

“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little. For all of these reasons, I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Monkeypox virus causes disease in many types of animals, and the first reported case of transmission from animals to humans was in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, monkeypox has been largely restricted to Africa with two viral variants known: the deadlier one is from Central Africa (case fatality rate, 10.6%) and the milder one is from West Africa (case fatality rate, 3.6%). The first case to occur outside of Africa was in 2003 in the US, which was found to have originated in pets imported from Ghana that spread to other pets and then from them to humans. Since then, infections have occasionally been seen among travelers returning from Africa but onward transmission to other people has been very limited.

This year, however, something new and strange is happening. There has been an unprecedented sustained transmission from person to person since the first case was announced in London on 7 May. Monkeypox virus has since infected 17,852 people from 69 countries outside of Africa, and 243 people from 6 countries within Africa (since the start of the year) according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published on 25 July. Outside of Africa: the EU countries account for two thirds of cases, while the country with the largest number of cases is the US with 3,846 cases spread over 47 states. To put that in perspective, consider the situation in Africa over the last 3 years, where the virus is endemic and infections are driven by natural human contact with infected animals: Africa reported 7,376 cases in 2020, 3,050 cases in 2021 and 2,030 cases so far this year. Cases numbers have been steady in Africa over the last 2 years, but are rising exponentially outside of Africa.

The countries with the most cases are those at the epicenter of ideologically driven tolerance for sexual deviance. A Pew Research Center report on 25 June 2020, showed that “public opinion on the acceptance of homosexuality in society remains sharply divided by country, region and economic development” with acceptance in 2019 far higher in the West than elsewhere. For the top five countries in the world where Monkeypox is reported, acceptance was the highest, 89%, in Spain which not coincidentally is the European country now with the greatest number of infections, followed by 86% in each of Germany the UK and France that rank second, third and fourth in Europe for infections. In the US, 72% said that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with 37% in India and 7% in Nigeria. The graph below shows the relationship between acceptance of homosexuality and numbers of cases. It was prepared by taking data from the top five countries and the three European countries with much less liberal attitudes to homosexuality and calculating infections per million of the population using current UN population data.

Clearly, there is a price to pay for the liberalization of attitudes to homosexuality. A study of 528 cases from 16 countries published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that 98% of the cases reported outside of Africa have occurred in men who admit to having sex with other men, who on average reported having sex with 5 other men within the past 3 months. Separately, UK government data showed that 31% of those infected had at least 10 sexual partners in the last 3 months! Not surprisingly, 41% of those infected with Monkeypox, were also infected with the AIDS virus - HIV.

Homosexuality and many other perversions are not only tolerated, where once they were frowned upon in the West, but are encouraged by democratic societies through legislation, media and the arts. Homosexuals are now considered a ‘minority community’ that in line with Western pluralist thinking needs to be given a voice along with transsexuals and others who espouse deviant practices. Through stages, homosexuality transitioned from being a crime, to being permissible, to being socially acceptable, to being trendy with homosexual characters increasingly presented as role models. The Pew Research showed that twenty years ago 42% of Americans thought that homosexuality should NOT be accepted by society, but this rejection has dropped to half that level with only 21% of Americans opposed to societal acceptance of homosexuality in 2019. These changing attitudes, as the liberal lobbies gained strength, are matched by the passing of legislation. In 2004, one US state passed legislation allowing same-sex marriage and in 2015 same sex marriage was made legal for all 50 US states. The first country in the world to legalize same sex marriage was the Netherlands in 2001 and now same-sex marriage is legal in 32 countries.

The Prophet Muhammad (saw) warned about the consequences of allowing open immorality to prevail. It was narrated that ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar said: The Messenger of Allah (saw) turned to us and said:

«يَا مَعْشَرَ الْمُهَاجِرِينَ! خَمْسٌ إِذَا ابْتُلِيتُمْ بِهِنَّ، وَأَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ أَنْ تُدْرِكُوهُنَّ» ‘O Muhajirun, there are five things with which you will be tested, and I seek refuge with Allah lest you live to see them.”

The first of these tests was:

«لَمْ تَظْهَرِ الْفَاحِشَةُ فِي قَوْمٍ قَطُّ، حَتَّى يُعْلِنُوا بِهَا، إِلَّا فَشَا فِيهِمُ الطَّاعُونُ، وَالْأَوْجَاعُ الَّتِي لَمْ تَكُنْ مَضَتْ فِي أَسْلَافِهِمُ الَّذِينَ مَضَوْا»

“Immorality never appears among a people to such an extent that they commit it openly, except that plagues and diseases that were never known among the predecessors will spread among them.”

This virus could possibly become a worldwide pandemic like Covid-19, and nobody can predict how serious that would be. Despite that fact that no deaths have yet been reported in Europe or the US, Monkeypox could become much more serious. Viruses mutate rapidly and can become better adapted to spread amongst a new host (humans) and there is evidence that we are witnessing that already with 6-12 times more mutations discovered in the genomes of viruses from this outbreak than expected. Two similar viruses can also recombine with each other to generate a new virus with the worst characteristics of both. The variant spreading around the world now is the milder West African one. However, as the number of infections increases, so too does the chance that a person will be infected simultaneously with the more severe Central African variant, making possible a recombination event giving rise to a new variant that is not only highly transmissible between people, but also more deadly.

As with the AIDS epidemic that began in the 1980s, this epidemic started with, but is not restricted to, men who have sex with men. Monkeypox has recently infected children and babies in the US, The Netherlands and Spain. If the virus starts spreading widely beyond the so-called ‘homosexual community’ then many fear that more vulnerable groups of people will suffer worse, especially those who are pregnant.

Allah (swt) has warned us:

(وَاتَّقُواْ فِتْنَةً لاَّ تُصِيبَنَّ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُواْ مِنكُمْ خَآصَّةً وَاعْلَمُواْ أَنَّ اللّهَ شَدِيدُ الْعِقَابِ)

“And fear a trial which will not strike those who have wronged among you exclusively, and know that Allah is severe in penalty”. [8:25]

With the active promotion of perversions and deviations from the Islamic social system in Muslim lands by misguided people who follow the agendas of the foreign agencies and NGOs according the pattern of Europe, Muslims need to continue standing up for Islam’s precious values and not remain silent before the secular onslaught that threatens us all.

The Western health agencies want to stop the spread of Monkeypox virus, but they want to do this by vaccinating men who have sex with 10 other men every 3 months with a vaccine that is in very short supply. They do not admit that the aggressive promotion of homosexuality and its normalization in children’s cartoons, media arts, schools and everywhere is what is allowing this virus to spread like wild fire. They are self-deceived and trapped in a failed ideology that threatens not only human decency, but humanity itself on every level. The Quran warned that wide scale corruption has consequences.

(ظَهَرَ الْفَسَادُ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِي النَّاسِ لِيُذِيقَهُم بَعْضَ الَّذِي عَمِلُوا لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ)

“Corruption has appeared in the land and the sea on account of what the hands of men have earned, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, so that they may return.” [30:41]

As this epidemic continues to expand, the ideological liberals are still clamoring for more homosexual rights without concern for the wider society. They are more perverted than the perverts themselves are. Whoever dares to speak a word in favour of a woman’s right to use a toilet without fear of being cornered there by a man pretending to be a woman is labelled ‘transphobic’ and risks the destruction of their career. Some enemies of Islam occasionally risk the anger of Muslims worldwide by drawing derogatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) or Muslims, in which cases all the powers of Western states will protect them; but nobody – truly nobody - would dare to consider publishing a cartoon of homosexuals or transsexuals in one of today’s so-called free societies! This is not a suggestion to draw cartoons, but the issue makes apparent just how powerful the liberal lobbies have become, and how proud Western societies have become of perversions. They even label carnivals for gathering all manner of perverts together to dress-up, march, shout, dance, and do other things with the adjective ‘Pride’. Many infections are associated with such events, but only the bravest politicians in a liberal democracy would dare to suggest cancelling such events.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin

References:
• https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/world-map.html (25 July, 2022)
• https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2207323 (21 July, 2022)
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/monkeypox-outbreak-technical-briefings/investigation-into-monkeypox-outbreak-in-england-technical-briefing-4 (19 July, 2022)
• https://africacdc.org/news-item/multi-country-monkeypox-outbreak-declared-a-global-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern-2/ (25 July, 2022)
• https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/pg_2020-06-25_global-views-homosexuality_a-01/
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01907-y