scholarly journals Environmental Care in Islamic Teaching: A Qur'anic Perspective

ICR Journal ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-283
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hashim Kamali

This article addresses the human-earth relationship from an Islamic perspective in two parts. The first part draws attention to a set of principles, beginning with that of Divine Oneness (tawhid) and the vision it conveys of the common predicament of man with the rest of the created world. The author reviews the principle of vicegerency of man (khilafah) on Earth - which designates humankind as trustee and custodian of its natural environment - and the principle of trust (amanah). The second part addresses instances of violation of these two principles. Three such instances are discussed: spreading mischief (fasad) on earth, extravagance and waste (israf), and infliction of harm (darar). The focus of the discussion in this part is on the human management, or rather mismanagement, of the earth with the result that humanity itself has become the chief victim of its own failings. In his conclusion the author seeks to contextualise his observations within the civilisational renewal (tajdid hadari), arguing that the shared vision of Muslims must be inspired by common values and commitments for the ecological wellbeing of the planet Earth and that Islamic teachings can make a distinctive contribution to that vision by infusing man’s management of the natural world with transcendent (revealed) values and ethics that look toward a common future for humanity and the rest of its earthly inhabitants. The article ends with recommendations for possible reforms.

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 414-431
Author(s):  
Dariusz Piechota ◽  

This article attempts to read Żeromski’s novel as a prefiguration of a contemporary ecological novel. The green reading of the writer’s work redirects readers’ attention towards non-human forms of life, introducing alternative optics for describing reality. The story of Tomasz Judym is tangled with the history of the natural world. While wandering around Paris, Warsaw, Cisy and Zagłębie, the protagonist notices the symptoms which prove the progressive degradation of the natural environment. As one of the few protagonists, he sees the destructive impact of industry on the natural environment. Judym is abandoning the anthropocentric perspective in favour of the biocentric one, making him more sensitive to the suffering of others, understood here as non-human inhabitants of the Earth. Nature is a self-regulating living organism, a powerful element whose contemplation can both delight and frighten. “Ludzie bezdomni” anticipates contemporary ecological thinking, which calls for rational use of earthly goods.


2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-139
Author(s):  
Sławomir Śledziewski

The subject of creation was neglected in theological debate for a long time. Only about 35 years ago, when the so-called ecological crisis manifested itself, creation began to appear in the center of theological interest. Some authors tried to accuse Christianity that the theology of creation is responsible for the crisis of the natural environment. Because of this accusation, the science of creation had to take a stand on the issue of ecology. The future of the Earth and its inhabitants depends not on the beginnings of the Universe, but on our present-day actions and attitudes. So, the dialog between natural sciences and theology entered the so-called „third phase” of their relation: the phase of necessary collaboration in the ecological crisis, the dialog between theology and natural sciences must have an ecological character, for at stake is the common future of this world, in which natural sciences and technology are part of God’s creation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerryn Higgs

The idea of physical limits to human economic systems is advanced by physical scientists and ecological economists, as well as appealing to the common sense proposition that unending growth in physical processes such as material extraction and waste disposal will ultimately be inconsistent with any finite entity, even one as large as the Earth. Yet growth remains the central aim of business and government almost everywhere. This paper examines the history of the idea of economic growth and the many influences and interests that supported – and still support – its enshrinement as the principal aim of human societies. These include the apparatus of propaganda in favour of corporate interests; the emphasis on international trade; the funding of environmental denial; and, underlying all these, the corporate requirement for profit to continue to increase. The dominance of these influences has serious consequences for the natural world while growth has failed to solve the problems of poverty.


Author(s):  
Ka’mal McClarin ◽  
Mike Antonioni

Much of the scholarship on Frederick Douglass in the past twenty years has focused on his public contributions to society at large: numerous comprehensive biographical treatments detail his interactions with political, religious, civil, and social movements. However, there has been little discussion of his interactions with the natural world. This article explores Douglass as a man of many seasons who demonstrated over the course of his life many passions, nature being among the most prominent. Along with Douglass’s staunch commitment as a universal reformer, we argue, Douglass carried a lifelong love for the environment, engaging with it physically, intellectually, and as a source of leisure. By the time of his death, he had become a Victorian gentleman farmer and a naturalist who possessed a global understanding of his natural environment. In fact, he often merged his appreciation for nature with his broad range of activism. These actions worked in harmony with one another. This aspect of his life was an equally important aspect of his character as a man who came of age during the nineteenth century and whose soul departed from the earth on the eve of the twentieth century.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 331-343
Author(s):  
Ewa Osek

According to St. Basil the human condition and the State of nature are always the same. The histories of the mankind and natural world are closely connected, because of his conception of the nature, conceived as the whole of which a man is a part. St. Basil basing himself on the Scriptures divides the word history into three stages: 1) the Paradise age, 2) the times after the Fali, and 3) eschatological timeless future. The first age of history - the Paradise - was the time of perfection of human race (represented by Adam and Eve) and of incorruptibility of their natural environment. There was no death, no desease, no disasters. The human condition was very high, because Adam was the king of the nature. His dominion over the earth and the animals was very kind and gentle. The first people were vegetarians and they didn’t kill animals. The Paradise man’s perfectibility corresponded to the perfect State of Paradise plants (for example, a rose had no thoms), to the gentleness of all the animals, and to mildness of the climate. The origin of death and all disasters was the Fali of Adam. St. Basil said that the duty of Adam was everlasting, never-ending contemplation of God, whose novice Adam could hear. But Adam ceased his ascetic practice because of temptation of boredom and sadness. Immediately after the first Adam’s sin started the times of imperfection, corruption, and death. The age of the Paradise happiness has gone, and now, in our times, everywhere there is pain, illness, pollution, climatic anomalies, etc. Man is not already the king of nature: now he is just a steward of God. The good stewardship will be rewarded by God after the Last Judgement and the prize will be eternal salvation or return to the eschatological Paradise. But succeeding generations of people sin in much more terrible manner then Adam, and their crimes, called progress, waste the earth by causing further degeneration and pollution of environment. These bad stewards will be punished in Heli among the lightless fire and the worms eating their bodies. The sins of bad stewards will cause condemnation of some part of nature with them, because the human beings won’t can exist without their natural environment even in eschatological endless Heli. The consummation of the world won’t be the end of existence of nature. After this eschatological event nature will be still exist in some transfigured and spiritual “better shape” except for the lightless fire and worms going to be punished with the reprobates in the Heli, parallel to the higher State of human souls (called by St. Paul “new creation”). Then, man’s responsibility for natural world can be called eschatological or eternal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Karino

Production is an activity to convert inputs into outputs through the transformation process. Input in the form of man, money, method, material, machine. While the output is in the form of goods or services. The purpose of production in general is to meet individual needs. There are several factors that influence production namely land and all economic potential that is processed and cannot be separated from the production process, labor is directly related to the demands of property rights through production, and capital, management and technology. In production there are various types of production, namely production which is intermittent and continuous. The production, if viewed from an Islamic perspective, it must fulfill the following principles. First, produce in a halal circle. Second, managing natural resources in production is interpreted as the process of creating wealth by utilizing natural resources must rely on the vision of the creation of this nature and along with the vision of human creation, namely as a blessing for all nature. Third, the Caliph on the earth is not only based on the activity of producing the usefulness of an item but work is done with the motive of benefiting to seek the pleasure of Allah SWT. Key Words: Production, Red Sugar, benefiting


1885 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 134-136
Author(s):  
H. A. Hagen
Keyword(s):  

The common white ant, Termes flavipes, destroys dead wood, stumps of trees and timber, just as does its nearest relative, T. lucifugus, in Europe. Of the latter species some cases are reported where living pines and oaks have been destroyed in the South of France. For T. flavipes, only one case is known, in which living grape vines in a hot house in Salem were injured. (S. H. Scudder. Proc. Boston, N. H. S., vol. 7, p. 287). Now the earth in the hot houses here in Cambridge is largely infested by white ants, but as far as I know, no destruction of plants has been observed. I was very much interested by the information from Mr. F. W. Putnam that in a garden in Irwing street living maples were largely infested by white ants. The evidence of the truth of this information was apparent by the first glance at the trees.


1780 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 354-377 ◽  

Sir, As you had recommended to me the examination of the air at sea by the nitrous test, I followed your advice in my return to the Continent in the beginning of November last: and I embraced that opportunity with the more eagerness, as I knew that you had given credit to the account of several consumptive people having recovered their health by going on sea voyages, after the common means for curing that distemper had failed. I was in hopes likewise to find in this inquiry, a confirmation of what you conjectured in you Anniversary Discourse in the year 1773, viz . that great bodies of water, such as seas and lakes, are conducive to the health of animals, by purifying and cleansing the air contaminated by their breathing in it: so that the salutary gales, by which this infected air is conveyed to the waters, and by them returned again to the land, though they do rise now and then to storms and hurricanes, must nevertheless induce us to trace and to reverse in them the ways of a beneficent Being, who, not fortuitously, but with design, not in wrath, but in mercy, thus shakes the waters and the air together, to bury in the deep those pestilential effluvia which the vegetables upon the face of the earth are insufficient to consume.


2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-766
Author(s):  
Lillian C. Woo

In the last fifty years, empirical evidence has shown that climate change and environmental degradation are largely the results of increased world population, economic development, and changes in cultural and social norms. Thus far we have been unable to slow or reverse the practices that continue to produce more air and water pollution, soil and ocean degradation, and ecosystem decline. This paper analyzes the negative anthropogenic impact on the ecosystem and proposes a new design solution: ecomimesis, which uses the natural ecosystem as its template to conserve, restore, and improve existing ecosystems. Through its nonintrusive strategies and designs, and its goal of preserving natural ecosystems and the earth, ecomimesis can become an integral part of stabilizing and rehabilitating our natural world at the same time that it addresses the needs of growing economies and populations around the world.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peyman Hekmatpour

The Anthropocene age is marked by increased human impacts on the natural environment. As social beings, humans interact with each other, and with their surrounding environments, often through organizations and institutions. Religion and the polity are among the most influential human institutions, and they tend to impact the natural environment in several ways. For instance, several thinkers have claimed that some of the central ideas of the Abrahamic traditions, such as the concept of “Domination of men over the earth,” are among the causes of several anthropogenic environmental problems. By contrast, some of the ideas of non-Abrahamic, particularly animistic, religions are found to be associated with environmental conservation and stewardship. The polity can also contribute to environmental problems. The relationship between political organizations and environmental degradation, at any level of analysis from local to global, is well studied and established in the literature. Politicizing the natural environment, however, is not without tradeoffs. Environmentalism, by certain groups of people, is considered as a “stigma,” while it is a central concept in the political ideology of another part of the population. This antagonism is harmful to the environmental protection cause. I make the case that religion, or at least a number of religious ideas, can be conducive to the process of depoliticizing the natural environment. In this paper, I strive to draw a theoretical framework to explain how religion and the polity can mutually impact the natural environment.


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