Text messages have been circulating since last week linking the timing of Wednesday and Thursday's earthquakes in Sumatra with verses about immorality and punishment in the Koran, prompting some Islamic leaders to call the disaster a "warning" from God.
Two days after the earthquake shook West Sumatra, the Jakarta Globe received an anonymous text message.
"Padang's earthquake happened at 17:16 and the aftershock happened at 17:58. The next day, there was an earthquake in Jambi at 8:52. Look at the Koran!" the text message stated. The verses corresponding with the earthquake times reference "annihilating" towns where residents and leaders have acted immorally. (Full translations of the passages are below)
Poet Taufiq Ismail told Republika newspaper that the link between the Padang earthquake and chapter 17, verse 16, in the Koran was found by a young ulema.
"It is awesome. I am stunned," Taufiq said. "I think the SMS has spread widely with the purpose that the nation stops doing the things that have angered God," he said.
Abdullah Syah, chairman of North Sumatra's Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), said that the earthquake was "a test and a warning for people in West Sumatra as well as in other areas."
"Every one must open their heart and their eyes to the disaster," he said. The earthquake was a signal for the Indonesian government to eradicate immorality, Abdullah added.
Meanwhile, geology experts have said the powerful quake that shook Padang came from a spot near – but not inside – the Sunda Trench, a long undersea crescent of seismic energy stretching from north of Aceh to the east of East Timor.
Tectonic plates from India and Australia are grinding slowly under plates that support Indonesia and Burma at a rate of up to six centimeters per year, causing explosive releases of force.
Quake expert Sri Widiyantoro, from the Bandung Institute of Technology, said the precise cause of the jolt in Padang did not come from the seam between plates, but was triggered by a break in the middle, a type known as an intraplate quake.
Translation of Koran verses referenced in SMS message
Chapter 17, Verse 16 (Al Isra)
"And when We desire to destroy a town, We command its affluent ones, those [inhabitants] of it who enjoy the graces [of God], meaning its leaders, [We command them] to obedience, by the tongue of Our messengers; but they fall into immorality therein, rebelling against Our command, and so the Word is justified concerning it, that it should be chastised, and We destroy it utterly, We annihilate it by annihilating its inhabitants and leaving it in ruins."
Chapter 17, Verse 58 (Al Isra)
"There is not a town – its inhabitants are the ones meant – but We shall destroy it before the Day of Resurrection, through death, or chastise it with terrible chastisement, by killing [its inhabitants] or otherwise. That has been inscribed in the Book, the Preserved Tablet."
Chapter 8, Verse 52 (Al Anfal)
"The way of these people is like the way of Pharaoh's folk and those before them: they disbelieved in God's signs and so God seized them, with chastisement, because of their sins. Truly, God is strong, in what He wills, severe in retribution."