Spirit of Islam, March-April 2026

A ccording to the English scholar Ian Nash, who spent eleven years in Japan making a close study of its language and people, what shook the Japanese most profoundly was not political upheaval, but the Great Kanto earthquake. On the first of September 1923, this catastrophe devastated the most densely populated eastern regions of the country. In his book The Story of Japan, he further observes that an even more terrible blow followed two decades later, when atomic bombs reduced the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to smouldering ruins. These events culminated in Japan’s defeat in the Second World War in 1945. It would seem natural to assume that a nation struck by such successive calamities would never recover. Yet Japan not only survived, it transformed itself into one of the foremost industrial and commercial powers of the modern world. Despite embarking upon industrial development far later than Britain, Europe, and America, Japan emerged as a global centre of technological innovation. This achievement becomes even more striking when one considers that Japan possesses few natural resources, unlike older industrial nations whose wealth lay buried beneath their own soil. The decisive factor in this remarkable recovery was not material abundance, but the will to act. Had the Japanese surrendered to despair, indulged in bitterness, or dissipated their energies in endless political protest, national decline would have been inevitable. Instead, they overcame any sense of victimhood and committed themselves to the reconstruction of their collective life. Earthquakes and war had brought devastation, yet they also served as a powerful stimulus, compelling the nation to rebuild with discipline, resolve, and purpose. THROUGH HARDSHIP TO THE STARS The Power of Will Ease and complacency often corrode human potential more effectively than hardship. Comfort dulls ambition, while uninterrupted prosperity encourages inertia.