THE GREAT HUMAN ECOLOGY
Humanity’s greed is unravelling the web of life and spooling its strands with its capitalist reel. At the helm lurk the world’s plutocrats and technocrats vying to spool up these lines and lay the bait for their next prey. At the frontiers of their extraction lay the countries of the Global South, which suffer the most. Severe ecological breakdown and human degradation are the costs of the relentless maximisation of profits and First World comforts.
Neoliberal governments, aware that they govern the unsuspecting, disguise this insatiable greed as necessary investments to stimulate economic growth. Beware of them. These public servants, supposedly serving you and me, are the guardians of predatory capitalism and, thus, antagonistic towards social and ecological welfare.
Our extraordinary ecology and the natural and ethical systems driving it are under grave threat, and by resisting such injustice, we keep our covenant with God. Stewardship of the earth is every Muslim’s duty. ‘I will create a vicegerent on earth’ [2:30], said God.
As Muslims, we have a higher ethics than the environmentalists. We don’t say we must protect the planet and its countless biomes for human posterity. We declare that we must be its guardians because it is their inherent right to be protected. Islam is a religion of deep reverence for the earth. Our spirituality goes hand in glove with the environment: ‘There is no animal that walks upon the Earth nor a bird that flies with its two wings, but they are like yourselves; We have not neglected anything in the book (Quran)’ [6:38].
We must strive to live in harmony with the environment and everything in it as we should with each other: ‘We have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another’ [49:13]. This verse and verse 6:38, cited above, complement each other. Both deal with diversity as a means to knowledge, wisdom and fraternity. It teaches us that biodiversity is essential for a healthy ecology, multiculturalism is paramount for growing progressive communities, and the two are inseparable. And that reducing life to mere numbers in a ledger, as the plutocrats do, is blasphemy.
God swears by the fig and the olive [95:1]. Have we thought about the sanctity of the trees that bear them?
LIFE’S TRIALS
“This cup holds grief and balm in equal measure. Light, darkness. Who drinks from it must change.” May Sarton
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Rumi
Every experience changes us. The question is in which direction or degree are we moved.
Trials and tribulations of immense magnitude afflicted the Prophet (s), yet each one shifted him towards God.
The first spiritual station after calamity is patience and acknowledgement that we will all return to God. Through this spiritual practice, the Prophet (s) drew tremendous strength, not within himself, but through the Power of God. Suddenly, the balm and grief were no longer equals. How could it ever be with Allah, the Healer, illuminating your wound?
What can we do in 2025 to advance joy in our lives?
Perhaps we could:
These few ideas should be enough to get us started and encourage us to develop some of our own.
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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