An Islamic Understanding Of The Environment – Theory and Practice

The following is taken from the Conclusion to this paper:

All of the modern Islamic scholars whose writings have been emphasized in this study are people ardent in their solid belief that a return to authentic or fundamental Islamic traditions and values is a requisite foundation for the Muslim world’s development of ethical environmental practices and a revitalized Islamic science. They emphasize that both the colonial era and the last four decades of independence have shown that imported and borrowed development systems have failed in Muslim countries, both physically and socially. This failure could have been foretold, since no imported progress in history was ever accomplished without an ethical emphasis, affections, loyalties and convictions.222 Their views are drawn from the richness of Islamic tradition and substantiated by passages from the sacred Quran and Sunnah. These scholars claim that the Islamic traditions have much to offer the global community.

It may be true that Islam as a religion and as a body of knowledge has provided its followers with a comprehensive system of environmental ethics and successful institutions to manage development wisely and equitably. However, principles alone will not influence or enhance the future of any community confronting the global environmental crises we are now facing. In other words it can be said that if ideals do not give rise to practical actions on the part of those who hold them are infertile and possibly hypocritical. It must be accepted that Islam does not establish a magic word that can be uttered to solve all problems. Islam as a religion has many difficulties when it comes to practice, not to mention those that have developed over the last fourteen centuries in consequence of misunderstanding, misinterpretation and misappropriation.

It is a fact that man is a social entity and has different types of environment such as natural, social, historical and cultural. These different dimensions have influences on his behaviors. It would be obviously misleading to take one of these environments out of context. In exactly the same way, solutions of environmental problems differ in every part of the world. Instead of accusing the West and turning their back to them, Muslims have to seek solutions together. While environmental protection in Muslim countries does not require any major legal or theoretical refutation or a new set of ethics, it must be accepted that Muslim countries can learn a lot from other societies regarding environmental protection.

We have one world. Communities have not an option to struggle against environmental problems by themselves. Global environmental challenges beg for cross-cultural discussions that highlight underlying cultural values regarding nature. Indeed, what we need today is a global ethical approach to the environment “a green Jehad 223” with the participation of all religions and non believers as well as every ethnic group and nations. Through this fight, both Islamic values and industrial values need to be re- examined to extract from them a new value system that fits modern human beings, without refusing the fundamentals of Islam and the environmental elements that it supports. In short, human beings have to meet under common denominators.

Through long education years, I have learnt one thing from my teachers. They taught me that to be aware of what the problem really is means half of the solution. As it has tried to be emphasized throughout this study the Turkish intelligentsia has an awareness problem and therefore observance problem regarding environmental necessities. This unawareness is two fold; first by ignoring their religious and cultural roots and second by shutting their eyes to the harsh Turkish environmental problems. Therefore as we mentioned before, Diyanet as a formal religious institution has responsibilities such as teaching Islamic environmental ethics to the Muslims. Moreover, in order to make the whole community aware of these problems politicians, intelligentsia and the media have responsibilities as well. In a broader context, there is a need for Muslims and other faiths to educate believers to be respectful towards the environment. We need to increase social awareness and develop the social responsibility regarding environmental problems and needs that we have to do through this process.

In order to win this fight we, as inhabitants of this world, have to speak the same language and this language is noting but love. According to a Catholic viewpoint, humankind’s relationship with the environment must be in the context of love. Pope John Paul (1994) urged that the faithful need to cross ‘a threshold of hope’ to work for ‘a civilization of love’. In Berry’s vision this is illustrated as “falling in love with the universe.” 224 As Nasr states, this love can only be reached when the modern spiritual malaise is cured.225 In this context, environmental philosophies not rooted in love will not go far enough.

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