ISLAM AND ECOLOGY
by Marjorie Hope and James Young

Seyyed Hossein Nasr sees at the center of Islam a charge to protect the natural world -- a world that reflects the higher reality of the transcendent God.

MARJORIE HOPE and JAMES YOUNG are a husband-and-wife writing team who have traveled in more than eighty countries. This article forms part of a book-in-progress on the potential for an effective ecological ethic in several major religions, tentatively entitled The New Alliance: Faith and Ecology.

The Qur'an' and the Hadith are rich in proverbs and precepts that speak of the Almighty's design for creation and humanity's responsibility for preserving it. For many Muslims, citing these is enough to prove that Islam has always embraced a complete environmental ethic. Others are more critical. They readily acknowledge that the guidelines are all there in Islamic doctrine. Tawhid (unity), khilafa (trusteeship), and akhirah (accountability, or literally, the hereafter), three central concepts of Islam, are also the pillars of Islam's environmental ethic. But they add that Muslims have strayed from this nexus of values and need to return to it.

Many of the Qur'anic verses cited by Muslims bear a striking resemblance to passages in the Bible, and portray a similar view of creation. "Praise be to Allah who created the heavens and the earth and made light and darkness" (Q.6:1). Later, in Q.6:102, we glimpse the principle of unity: ". . . . There is no God but He, the Creator of all things." The dignity of all creation is proclaimed: "The seven heavens and the earth and all therein declare His glory: there is not a thing but celebrates His praise. . ." (Q. 17:44).

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Eucharist and Ecology

by Fr. Erasto Fernandez

In the prayer at the Presentation of Gifts, the celebrant reminds us that the bread and wine brought to the altar are 'what earth has given and human hands have made.' Thus, the fruit of the earth and everything connected with it also has a place in our Eucharist - in our thanksgiving to the Father. However, very often we limit our reflections and considerations only to the spiritual side of our lives; either we take the rest for granted or we have been trained to feel that God is not really interested in this aspect. Concern for the material, we imagine, is to be left to the unspiritual persons among us. Nothing is further from the truth for God is keenly interested in everything that he created, for he saw that it was good, in deed, very good! 

Judaism and Ecology:
Created World and Revealed Word

by

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Editor),
Tsvi Blanchard (Contribution by),
Eliezer Diamond (Contribution by),
Evan Eisenberg (Contribution by),
Michael Fishbane (Contribution by)

Environmental Crisis

"When the earth is shaken with a (violent) shaking,
And the earth reveals what burdens her,
And man says: What has befallen her?
On that day she shall tell her story...." (Qur'an 99:1-4)

In light of today’s environmental crises, many secular and religious  scholars have begun to look into underlying philosophical causes for man's rapacious attitude towards his environment. Part of this search involves a look at root philosophies affecting the human outlook and interaction with the world and the responsibility religion shares in creating the attitudes and philosophies that have led to the desecration of nature that has occurred in the past few centuries and which seems to be accelerating in our times. As Ziauddin Sardar writes;

“The roots of our ecological crises are axiomatic: they lie in our belief and value structures which shape our relationship with nature, with each other and the lifestyles we lead.” (Sardar, Ziauddin. Islamic Futures. New York; Mensell Publishing Limited. 1985. pg.218)