Description and Explanation of Earthquake in Muslim Thought: A Critical Review on the Book “Kashf Al-Salsala ‘An Wasf al-Zalzala”

“Kashf Al-Salsala‘An Wasf Al-Zalzala” by Al-Suyuti (d. 911 A.H.) is the most comprehensive book written about the earthquake in Islamic culture. In this article, Suyūti's explanation of this natural phenomenon and his reports on earthquakes of the Islamic period are examined. This book is a collection of everything that Muslim scholars before him, from narrators and commentators to historians, have said and written about earthquakes. In this book, both the causes of earthquakes and an annual list of earthquakes that occurred in the Islamic era are discussed. Suyūti's explanation of the earthquake is not a scientific and natural explanation but a religious and supernatural explanation. Referring to narrative and interpretive sources, he seeks the truth and the origin of the earthquake in the image of Qaf Mountain, an idea that had pre-Islamic mythological roots and took on a religious and Islamic dress among the Medieval Muslims. Suyūti also considers the cause of the earthquake to be the result of the wrong and improper actions and behaviors of the servants, citing narrations from the beginning of Islam. The Suyūti chronological list of earthquakes that occurred in the post-Islamic period contains data on the number and severity of earthquakes and their human, social, and natural consequences, which can be used to study the social history of Medieval Muslims.