Mouood Mouood English Edition
The relationship between human beings and the earth is increasingly complicated and urgent. Every day there are stories about pollution, global warming and animal species facing extinction. Religion is responding with views on the enviroment and our responsibility for it.As said: Devote thyself single-mindedly to the Faith, and thus follow the nature designed by Allah,
the nature according to which He has fashioned mankind. There is no altering the creation of Allah.
Islamic belief about the environment
Although human beings are seen as the most intelligent life form on earth, they are responsible for almost all the damage done to the planet. If we imagined the earth is aged 46, all the damage done has taken place in the last 60 seconds of the earth’s life.
The Qur’an says that Allah (God) is the Creator of the world. Human beings are on the world as trustees or ‘viceregents’ – they are told to look after the world for Allah and for the future:
The Earth is green and beautiful, and Allah has appointed you his stewards over it. The whole earth has been created a place of worship, pure and clean. Whoever plants a tree and diligently looks after it until it matures and bears fruit is rewarded. If a Muslim plants a tree or sows a field and humans and beasts and birds eat from it, all of it is love on his part.
Hadith
In the Qur’an, Muslims are instructed to look after the environment and not to damage it:
Devote thyself single-mindedly to the Faith, and thus follow the nature designed by Allah, the nature according to which He has fashioned mankind. There is no altering the creation of Allah.
Surah 30:30
Muslims have to look after the earth because it is all Allah’s creation and it is part of a human’s duty to Allah:
Allah is He Who raised up the heavens without any pillars that you can see. Then He settled Himself on the Throne, and constrained the sun and the moon to serve you; each planet pursues its course during an appointed term. He regulates it all and expounds the Signs, that you may have firm belief in the meeting with your Lord. He it is Who spread out the earth and made therein firmly fixed mountains and rivers, and of fruits of every kind He has made pairs. He causes the night to cover the day. In all this, verily, are signs doer a people who reflect.
Surah 13:3-4
Because of this passage, people see themselves as being responsible for the world which Allah created and they have to make their own decisions about how to do this.
The Assisi Declarations on Nature, 1986
In 1986, HRH Prince Philip, then President of the WWF International invited five leaders of five of the major religions of the world – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism – to meet to discuss how their faiths could help save the natural world.
The meeting took place in Assisi in Italy, because it was the birth place of St Francis, the Catholic saint of ecology. From this meeting arose key statements by the five faiths outlining their own distinctive traditions and approach to the care for nature.
In the Assisi Declarations on Nature the Muslim statement was:
• The central concept of Islam is Tawhid [Tawhid: Belief in the Oneness of Allah ] or the Unity of God. Allah [Allah: The Islamic name for God in the Arabic language ] is Unity; and His Unity is also reflected in the unity of mankind, and the unity of man and nature. His trustees are responsible for maintaining the unity of His creation, the integrity of the Earth, its flora and fauna, its wildlife and natural environment. Unity cannot be had by discord, by setting one need against another or letting one end predominate over another; it is maintained by balance and harmony. There Muslims say that Islam is the middle path and we will be answerable for how we have walked this path, how we have maintained balance and harmony in the whole of creation around us.
• So unity, trusteeship and accountability, that is Tawhid, Khalifah [Khalifah: Successor; inheritor; custodian; vice-regent. ] and Akhirah [Akhirah: Everlasting life after death – the afterlife. ], the three central concepts of Islam, are also the pillars of the environmental ethics of Islam. They constitute the basic values taught by the Qur’an [Qur’an: That which is read or recited. The Divine Book revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. Allah’s final revelation to humankind. ]. It is these values which led Muhammad [Muhammad: The name of the final Prophet. ], the Prophet of Islam, to say: ‘Whoever plants a tree and diligently looks after it until it matures and bears fruit is rewarded.’
• For all these reasons Muslims see themselves as having a responsibility towards the world and the environment, all of which are the creations of Allah.
• Unlike many other religions, Muslims do not have any specific festivals in which they give thanks for the harvest or the world. Instead they give thanks to Allah regularly for his creation.
• In order to separate Islam from other religions, the Islamic year is only 354 days, this means that the months and festivals happen at a different time each year and so there is no particular festival which falls during a period of harvest.
