The West has had access to a wide range of entertainment media for decades—anything from Japanese anime to American comic adaptations, with contrasting storylines, characterization, pacing, and even diverging moral outlooks, shaped, of course, by the cultural frameworks that produced them. What is particularly fascinating, however, are the villains of these stories. In Western productions, antagonists often pursue relatively mundane ambitions such as wealth, status, or personal power. In contrast, Japanese anime villains appear to embody something much darker and of a more existential nature: a hatred for humanity itself, with their greatest schemes often culminating in the complete destruction of the world.

Before we proceed any further, a disclaimer: This is in no way a recommendation or approval of consuming television shows or manga/anime, etc. In fact, numerous serious concerns have been expressed on the Muslim Skeptic website (see, for example, here and here) about the major detrimental effects such things can have on Muslims.

Founding Act of Modern Japanese Pop Culture?

Pierre Pigot’s Apocalypse Manga crystallizes a deeper rationalization of this phenomenon: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are being commemorated at this current moment in time (since it occurred in August, 1945), did not only scar Japan historically; they rewired its cultural imagination. Unlike the West, where apocalypse had become largely allegorical, in Japan, the obliteration of an entire society was not a matter of mere speculative fiction. It was a lived memory, a historical real-life trauma.

The recurring motif of Anime villains seeking to completely erase humanity is thus a reflection of a collective consciousness, where total self-annihilation is not only something merely thinkable but frighteningly human in its origin.

This perspective also explains why Japanese narratives often frame destruction as being both terrifying and strangely sublime: Annihilation is not merely the villain’s fantasy. It is a reminder of what modern civilization, armed with its own man-made inventions, has already proven itself capable of.

Modernity can itself be read as a kind of symbolic atomic bombing. It fragments society through radical individualism, reducing people to isolated and “atomized” selves that are locked into profit-maximizing behaviors within an endless zero-sum game. Its rationalist ethos promises enlightenment, but it often delivers fire, dismantling long-standing traditions and undermining the spiritual frameworks that once gave life coherence. And its techno-optimism, while celebrating progress, carries an undercurrent of devastation, accelerating ecological collapse and eroding the natural habitats that sustain human existence.

In this sense, modernity mirrors the dual nature of the bomb as both a dazzling triumph of “human ingenuity” and a catastrophic force of self-destruction.

The Japanese were, of course, forced to learn this the hard way.

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“Could Muslims Have Done It?”

Shi’i Perennialist Seyyed Hossein Nasr remains an extremely deviant and highly controversial intellectual, to say the least, particularly due to his association with the kufr of Perennialism, i.e., the view that all religions reflect a “universal metaphysical core,” such that even the most seemingly idolatrous practices ultimately symbolize worship of the One God. While this position has drawn serious legitimate criticism within Islamic circles for its relativization of kufr and shirk, and though I would not recommend reading his works for obvious reasons, Nasr does nonetheless offer some insights in a select few subjects, particularly in the history and philosophy of science.

In one of his works, he confronts the oft-posed question: “Why did the Islamic world never produce its own Descartes?” (Descartes is typically seen as the inaugurator of modern philosophy.) Nasr’s response is revealing: within the Islamicate intellectual tradition, it would have been unthinkable to elevate autonomous reason above divine revelation. The epistemological rupture that Descartes represented in Europe—a shift toward secular rationalism as sovereign—was simply incompatible with a civilization in which knowledge remained anchored to the sanctity of the Divine.

A similar reflection can be made regarding the use of atomic bombs. Within the Islamic tradition, the ethics of warfare have consistently emphasized restraint, proportionality, and the immunity of non-combatants. Numerous Qur’anic verses underscore these principles, framing war not as a totalizing annihilation of the enemy but as a tightly regulated activity bound by limits that are both moral and legal (with the Shari’ah, of course, being both moral and legal).

Because of this, We did prescribe for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a person — except [in punishment] for [the killing of another] person, or for the spreading of [dire] corruption in the earth — it shall be [reckoned] as though he has killed all humankind. And whoever saves a life, it shall be [reckoned] as though he has saved the life of all humankind. And very truly, Our messengers came to them with the clear [and miraculous] proofs [of Allah]. Yet, indeed, even then many among them thereafter were exceedingly rebellious in the land. (Qur’an, 5:32)

Furthermore, fight in the path of Allah all those who fight you. But do not commit aggression. Indeed, Allah does not love those who commit aggression. (Qur’an, 2:190)

The late scholar of great renown, Mufti Muhammad Shafi’ (may Allah have mercy on him), comments on verse 2:190 of the Qur’an as follows in his Ma’arif al-Qur’an:

The command in this verse is that Muslims should fight only those disbelievers who come to fight against them. It means that there are other people too who do not take part in fighting, such as the women, the children, the very old, the priests and monks and others devoting themselves to quiet religious pursuits, and the physically handicapped, and those casual labourers who work for disbelievers and do not go to fight along with them; it is not permissible to kill such people in a Jihad. The reason is that the command in the verse is restricted to fighting those who come to fight Muslims. The kind of people mentioned above are not all fighters. That is why Muslim Jurists (may Allah have mercy on them) have also ruled that should a woman, an old man, or religious person take part in actual fighting along with disbelievers or be helping them in any manner in their fight against the Muslims, then, killing them is permissible because they come under the purview of الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ – “those who fight you.” (Mazhari, Qurtubi, and Jassas)

 

The battle orders of the Holy Prophet ﷺ given to the mujahidun of Islam at the time of Jihad carry a good explanation of this injunction. In a hadith from al-Bukhari and Muslim, as narrated by the blessed Companion ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), it is said:

 

نھی رسول اللہ ﷺ عن قتل النساء والصبیان

“The Holy Prophet ﷺ has prohibited the killing of women and children.”

 

The following instructions from the Holy Prophet ﷺ given to the Companions going on Jihad have been narrated in a hadith from Sayyidna Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) which appears in Abu Dawud: “Go for Jihad in the name of Allah adhering to the community of the Messenger of Allah. Do not kill anyone old and weak, any young child or any woman.” (Mazhari)

 

When Sayyiduna Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) sent Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan (may Allah be pleased with him) to Syria, he gave him the same instructions. Also added there is the prohibition of killing the religiously-devoted, the monks and priests, and the labourers employed by disbelievers, especially when they do not take part in fighting. (Qurtubi)

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It becomes evident that the atomic bombings, which killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese non-combatants, stand in direct opposition to the spirit of Islamic teachings on the ethics of war. This does not imply that Muslims should categorically reject nuclear weapons as tools for deterrence but, rather, that the specific act carried out by the United States transgressed the moral limits enshrined in the Shari’ah.

Compounding the moral dilemma is the historical context: Emperor Hirohito was already contemplating surrender, and many historians argue the bombings were less a military necessity than a calculated demonstration of power aimed at the Soviet Union.

The devastation, moreover, did not end in August, 1945. The nuclear fallout, the so-called “black rain,” ushered in decades of continued suffering. Survivors (hibakusha) faced elevated rates of leukemia, thyroid cancer, birth defects, cataracts, and other radiation-related illnesses, many of which continue to afflict families generations later. In this sense, not only did the bombings violate the Qur’anic injunctions against indiscriminate slaughter, they also produced a lingering, intergenerational harm that makes them even more incompatible with the ethical framework of Islamic just war.

It is also worth noting the asymmetry in the way violence is framed. Public discourse often invokes the phrase “Islamic violence,” as though religion were uniquely prone to legitimizing bloodshed. The atomic bombings, however, are rarely described as instances of “secular violence.” And yet, they emerged precisely from a secular civilizational framework, one that—lacking absolute truths and a binding ethical superstructure—was able to try and rationalize the apocalyptic destruction of entire cities and civilian populations.

In this light, Hiroshima and Nagasaki reveal not just the horrors of modern weaponry but also the ethical void into which a secular order can slide when technological capacity outpaces moral restraint.

Lastly, as Muslims, we do not see history as an unguided vortex of “chance.” It is as part of Creation itself, subject to Divine decree. Nothing, in this view, is purely “random.” From this perspective, and this remains an open question, the oft-cited “lack of technological progress” in Muslim societies might not be a shortcoming to be overcome but, perhaps, a safeguard. While acquiring sufficient technological capability is considered by many to be necessary for self-defense and military preparedness, it is conceivable that the absence of Muslim-developed atomic weapons reflects a providential wisdom: that a civilization bound by a Divinely-revealed law and set of ethics, i.e., the Shari’ah, would be protected against unleashing such major annihilatory power.

One might also ask whether the broader features of modern technological society—rationalism divorced from revelation, materialism as a worldview, and the instrumentalization of nature—are themselves paths from which Muslims are meant to retain some distance.

In this sense, the Islamic relationship with technology might never be one that is purely about mastery but, instead, about maintaining an ethical horizon that prevents power from transgressing its limits.

And Allah knows best.

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