Islamic scholar who said coronavirus was Allah’s punishment tests positive

Prominent Iraqi Shia scholar, Hadi Al-Modarresi, has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, weeks after he claimed the deadly disease was undoubted “an act of Allah” against the Chinese for their treatment, mockery, and disrespect towards Muslims and Islam.

The  63-year-old cleric, who is one of the most prominent Shia leaders in Iraq and comes from a long line of active scholars, was quoted in February 2020 as saying: “It is obvious that the spread of this virus is an act of Allah. How do we know this? The spread of the coronavirus began in China, an ancient and vast country, the population of which makes up one-seventh of humanity.

“More than a billion people live in that country. The authorities in that country are tyrannical and they laid siege to more than a million Muslims and placed them under house arrest. The journalists in that country began to mock the niqab of Muslim women and they forced Muslim men to eat pork and drink wine. Allah sent a disease upon them and this disease laid siege to 40 million [Chinese people]. The same niqab that they mocked has been forced upon them, both men and women, by Allah, by means of the state authorities and officials.”

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