World for Peace

Qur’an has 200 verses on the environmental protection

Many Muslim majority countries bear the brunt of climate change, but they often have a staggeringly limited cultural awareness of it and climate action.

Qur’an has 200 verses on the environmental protectionA

“Islamic environmental protection” movement centered on Islamic culture-not imported “white saviour” environmental protection based on political movements of the first world-will tackle both. And the emission slowdown post-COVID-19 is an opportunity to fast-track this.

This is a campaign that we need really badly. For example, my home country Turkey is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as temperatures are rising, and rainfall is falling year after year, causing serious water availability problems. In Bangladesh, one in seven is estimated to be displaced by climate change by 2050 creating millions of climate refugees. Large areas are likely to become uninhabitable in the Middle East due to heatwaves which are likely to sweep across the region over the next few decades.

Despite its weakness, however, many Muslim countries are contributing to the problem. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, is the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, and is doing little to curb emissions. Bangladesh and Pakistan are the world’s two most polluted countries, but have taken no serious action to tackle pollution. Despite a declaration by Muslim countries in 2015 to play an active part in the fight against climate change, inaction in the Muslim world persists.

You’d think those most affected by climate change would be the most desperate to stop it. Not always that’s the case. Many Muslim countries are unwilling to implement Western environmental protection principles or to bow to pressure from countries that have already experienced industrialisation without tackling pollution or curbing emissions. The answer to that is not environmental colonialism.

What will work, and has been shown to work, is the use of Islamic values to encourage Muslim conservation.

Islam teaches its followers to look after the earth. Muslims believe that humans will serve as planetary guards, or khalifahs, and that Allah will keep them responsible for their actions. This idea of stewardship is a strong one and has been used in the Islamic Climate Change Declaration to promote reform in Muslim countries’ environmental policy.

Muslims in fact need to look for guidance no further than the Quran, where there are about 200 verses about the environment. Muslims are told that “the existence of the heavens and the earth is greater indeed than the creation of man.” In reality, nothing could be more Islamic than protecting the most precious creation of God: the earth.

It is this approach that can reach the hearts and minds of the 1.8 billion Muslims around the world, and it has to be integrated with the climate movement, rather than neglected.

Qur’an has 200 verses on the environmental protectionThe Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) also showed compassion, consideration and general good animal welfare values which are a benchmark for Muslims. He forbade the killing of animals for sport, told people not to overload their camels and donkeys, ordered the slaughtering of an animal for food to be done with kindness and consideration for the feelings of the animal and respect for Allah who gave it life, he even allowed his camel to choose the place where he built his first mosque in Madina.

A study in Indonesia in 2013 showed that the inclusion of environmentalist messages in Islamic sermons has led to increased public awareness and environmental concern. Indonesia released a fatwa (or islamic legal opinion) in 2014 to require Muslims from the country to protect endangered species.

There are also groups, such as the Alliance for Religions and Conservation (ARC), committed to using faith to pass on the message of conservation. One of its most successful projects has used Islamic scholars to convince Tanzanian fishermen that dynamite, dragnet and spear fishing goes against the Quran-and they have listened.

This case also informs us that it is doubtful that distant, top-down moralising can succeed. The fishermen had previously resisted government bans, but were persuaded once it was told they were acting un-Islamically. One fisherman said: “This side of protection is not from the mzungu [“white man” in Swahili], it’s from the Quran.”

Obviously, we need to speak the language of those whose behaviour we seek to change, especially if that language is naturally averse to unsustainable policies.

Some Muslim thinkers are aware of this and are eager to develop a “homegrown” environmental movement that will emerge as leaders of thought in their own right. For instance, this month’s Dhaka Forum ran a panel on post-COVID-19 environmental issues with most speakers from the Muslim world coming in.

In the climate race Muslim countries have a head start. They have a framework and system of beliefs which commands the protection of the earth and its natural resources. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a prominent proponent of the religion and environmental protection movement, argues, the desacralisation of the West has resulted in an ideology that humans have dominion over the earth, rather than stewardship of it, which is the Islamic view.

Muslims must once again become guardians of the earth, for the sake of their surroundings and the sake of God.

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