A laborer works on the construction of a house shaped like a spaceship and is designed by Augusto Vinholis, a naturopathic practitioner, outside the city of Alto Paraiso de Goias, central Brazil, yesterday.
DOHA: The doomsday tale predicting the end of the world today is a hoax, says a famed Qatari astronomer, as he tries to convince through media interviews some in his own community who believe the tale to be true.
According to the ancient Mayan calendar, the world ends today and it has triggered a hysteria the world over with many people swayed by the tale.
Sheikh Salman bin Jabor Al Thani, from the Qatar Scientific Club (QSC), says he wonders that if the ancient Mayans were so good at making predictions and coming up with calculations about when the world would end, why couldn’t they predict the end of their own civilization?
“Their generations perished and they couldn’t foresee their own end,” said Sheikh Salman, tongue in cheek, talking of the Mayans’, whose so-called calendar ends today after a span of 5,125 years.
He said in remarks to The Peninsula that the whole thing initially started with suggestions that there would be total destruction—the world would vanish. The speculations were modified later, and it was suggested that the destruction would be partial.
And, then, still later, the talk of the threat was modified further and suggestions were offered that the ‘disaster’ would be restricted to certain countries. And that’s where people looking for chances of making money stepped in.
Insurance companies took benefit of the panic and made a killing, as people thought “let’s get insured so if something happens to us, our families would be financially secure”.
In Russia, some people began accumulating food to prepare for ‘emergencies’, whereas in some other western societies people jumped off bridges and ended their lives in panic.
“It’s a foolish talk,” said Sheikh Salamn of the Mayan doomsday tale. According to him, in the Holy Books of Muslims, Christians as well as Jews, there is extensive mention of clear signs of the doomsday. “So, believers aren’t going to lend their ears to talks predicting the end of the world today.”
Mohamed Yaqub Al Sayed, another educated Qatari, said since their society is Muslim, a vast majority of the people do not believe in the Mayan doomsday speculations since the predictions contradict Islamic teachings and belief.
“However, there are a few who do, and I think the problem with them is more psychological than anything else,” Al Sayed said, putting the blame on the media, which he believes has blasted the entire issue out of proportion.
Today’s media are so strong that if anything happens in one corner of the world, news about it reaches the other corner in no time. And they (the media) also create hypes. Take the example of the turn of the last century, said Al Sayed. “So much was said about Y2K, but ultimately what happened?...This time around also, nothing would happen.”
The Peninsula
