Islam and disaster management in contemporary times: a psycho-socio-spiritual response

This paper draws on the understanding that Islam as a religion can significantly contribute in the area of disaster management. It examines the way disaster is portrayed within the broader scope of Islamic literature, but with the specific aim of contextualizing it within contemporary approach to disaster management. Through exegetical, historical and descriptive approaches, it is demonstrated that psycho-socio-spiritual interventions such as tawakkul (trust in God), shukr (gratitude), sabr (patience) are attributes that can help foster and promote individual and communal resilience in order to mitigate disasters. Therefore, in the face of a disaster, an individual or community can obtain vital spiritual support from their beliefs and can also have access to and rely on important support and resources that are generated or mobilized by their belief-based framework.