Summary of a talk given on 15th April 2008 by Dr. Muzammal Hussain, of London Islamic Network for the Environment (LINE)
I’m not a scholar, not an imam, not a sheikh but through much of the work I’ve been doing I’ve been in contact with people who have helped me to improve my knowledge of Islam and the environment. Firstly I’ll say a bit about my background and how I got involved with environmentalists from a spiritual tradition. And then I’ll talk a bit about that tradition in relation to the environment, about environmentalism. That will be the theory. The practice will be about how, or what, London Islamic Network for the Environment is actually doing. Perhaps what is more important is how it’s doing what it’s doing.
I started out as a medical doctor and I studied at the Royal Free. It was in medical school that I read a leaflet about the introduction of genetically modified foods being imported into this country and it struck me that something wrong was happening to our foods. That activated me to begin to campaign on that particular issue. I began to focus more on the Muslim community, not because I would have called myself particularly religious at the time, but because the environmentalist groups that were campaigning and working on this issue did not have such an easy access to the Muslim community as I had. As a result I began to get more familiar with my own faith background and also to develop my knowledge of the environment and global trading structures and I developed quite a good grasp of what was going on.
Initially I thought I would just be campaigning for about two or three months and then I would have awakened the Muslim community and I could take a back seat but five years later I am still involved. I began to work with an environmental organisation but I thought that going round and just giving one-off talks to organisations was quite limited if one wanted to develop a grass roots movement. People would come, listen, nod their heads but then go back home and there wasn’t really any transformation. Around this time I went to Brighton and got involved with the World Development Movement there. They included some very active people who on the one hand might have PhDs in international development and others who might get arrested for being involved in some kind of peaceful justice activity. I learned quite a lot from them though I was only involved with them for a couple of years. The way they worked inspired me to start Islamic groups in the UK and (LINE) was the first. It is still the only one that meets regularly.
Central to Islam and in some ways similar to all faiths, as I understand, is the concept of unity in some form, of oneness, although different faiths express it differently. In Islam that concept is called tawhid. That’s why the principle of one God is important to Muslims. I’ll go through a few things that are central to Islam and also provide a background, a foundation to environmentalism. The concept of tawhid is the first principle of Islam. The reason why this is environmentally relevant is that if everything that exists comes ultimately from one source then there is a relationship between all the diverse aspects of creation and the foundation, through that oneness, that is the origin of everything. We live in an interconnected world, everything has the same origin. It’s because it has the same origin that allows it, in its natural state to exist in harmony where it serves the origin, its Creator. Everything is meant to be created in a state called fitrah, a natural state. Everything, all of creation, has a state of intrinsic goodness in itself. It operates and functions from that state so that each aspect of creation is in submission to the source from which it originated. In doing this, it is in harmony with the wider creation.
Linked to this is also diversity because the expression of that natural state will be different for each aspect of creation. There will be variation, but there will be limits. A horse will function in a particular way. A daffodil will function according to its natural state and genetic modification perhaps extends those limits. But human beings will have the ability to deviate from their natural state and also to disrupt the harmony outside. And that takes me on to the third concept, which is the concept of balance or mizan. Linked to that is the concept of proportion. It says in the Qur’an “He (that is, God) created the heavens and the earth in true proportion”. The concept of proportion and balance is something that is touched on a number of times. So why don’t we consider the balance in terms of greenhouse gases where if we lower the concentration of greenhouse gases it upsets the balance of the earth and the earth will be very cold, too cold to sustain life. Yet if there is too much greenhouse gas concentration the earth will be too hot and will result in global warming which itself will upset balance. This balance is also there if you look at blood pressure, for example, or even something we may consider to be negative, like bacteria in the gut; if you upset the proportion of bacteria, which can happen for example through antibiotics which are over-prescribed, you can develop life-threatening diarrhoea. So even things we may consider bad, have a purpose and where there is proportion, there is a healthy purpose and a place for all things.
The first three concepts are tawhid, or oneness; fitrah, or the state of innate goodness, and mizan, or balance. Then next one is fasad which is translated as corruption. It is also translated as mischief, or disasters. It implies what may happen when human beings deviate from their natural state. There is a verse in the Qur’an which says disasters have appeared on land and in the sea because of what people’s own hands have done, that God may give them a taste of some of their deeds to help them find their way back to him. So if we have witnessed catastrophes and disasters in the natural order, then taking this verse into account it would be an opportunity to reflect on what is going on and to what extent we, as individuals in the global community, may have been instrumental in feeding that particular disaster and that creates a setting for a more self-reflective approach of responsibility. This verse refers to us going back to that natural state, to fitrah, where we ultimately reconnect with God. We can mess up, we don’t know everything, but if things go wrong it’s an opportunity to reflect how we may have deviated from that pure state in which we were created. In that sense there is no crisis which is not also a crisis of opportunity and this is a positive way to see it.
That takes us on to the fifth concept, khalifah, or guardianship or responsibility. In the Qur’an there is a verse, “It is He who has created you guardians (or viceroys) of the earth”. From the Islamic point of view we are here as trustees or stewards. So there is a responsibility to take care of the natural order, to maintain balance and helping to restore it if things get out of balance. That in a nutshell is how I summarize the Islamic perspective.
The present paradigm is a challenging one. There is at present one of almost unquestioning economic growth. Within that is almost unquestionable consumerism and individualism. What is scary to me is that in spite of the principles I have articulated, many Muslims are also caught up in that paradigm and I daresay that is the case in other faith traditions as well. What a faith tradition articulates is not necessarily what its adherents practise in a profound way. So whether someone prays five times a day or goes to the mosque frequently or recites the Qu’ran, doesn’t in itself serve as an antidote to the kind of corrupt momentum that we are collectively within. At the same time, some so-called green solutions are caught up within that paradigm. Whether it is do what you want and just offset your carbon emissions without considering what structural changes are needed. Or continue driving as much as you want but just use bio-fuels so we can cause more deforestation and push people off their land, or whether it is nuclear power to serve our energy needs and go on consuming as much energy as we want, at the same time plundering the earth’s resources and chasing desires that will not lead us to fulfilment. There is a real need to get our teeth into this in a collective way.
In the early days, just prior to the spread of Islam, the context is very interesting because in Mecca at that time was a society in which there was considerable materialism and there are at least two reasons. There was a sanctuary, the Ka’aba, where Muslims pray and even before Islam it was a spiritual centre, There were also two important trading routes that intersected in Mecca. So you have two things. You have religion and you have trade. People took their goods to trade so it was an ideal spot to stop to engage in spiritual practices and do business at the same time. In the period just prior to the spread of Islam the hosts became rich over the course of three generations and moved from a tribal culture where people cared considerably for those within their tribe and where people needed one another just for survival, to a society that was rich through the wealth its members had gained. Wealth became in itself a religion. Individualism, consumerism, wealth were endemic. Those with wealth now no longer needed others especially those who did not have it. There was considerable abuse of the system and the gap between rich and poor began to increase. The sick, the widows, the needy, were not taken care of. Social injustices began to increase. There was a fixation on materialism. It has been described as a very capitalist society, just as our present society is. This is the society in which Islam and the teachings of Mohammad began to take hold.
It has been interesting for me to look at some of the early teachings of Islam. Some of them focus on the natural order. People were fixated on wealth, but these teachings oriented their minds and hearts to something else. The natural world was referred to as ayat, science. It’s also a word that is used to refer to verses in the Qu’ran so it’s interesting that on the one hand the text of the Qu’ran, which for Muslims is meant to be the word of God, is referred to as ayat and nature is also referred to as ayat. At the time, therefore, people were asked to reflect on the natural order and the beauty of perfection within it and in a way that is mirroring the text of the Qu’ran which is meant to be the word of God and in the same way the natural world is meant to be the word of God. If we reflect on this it helps us to transcend the material world on which we may be fixated. This is a simple technique which people were encouraged to use at that time. In some ways this is not confined to any one faith; it is a universal principle. Within the Islamic faith, Muslims worship five times a day. This does not take place at a fixed chronological time, but according to the natural world. (before sunset, shortly before sunrise, after the sun has reached its peak, and so on) This also helps to orient a person to the natural order.
Now I want to talk a bit about London Islamic Network for the Environment. We have high ideals, but what is the group doing?
In one sense (LINE) is an environmental group which has monthly meetings, like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. We engage in environmental justice activities to an extent. We go on climate change marches and to a limited extent we have been campaigning on the climate change bill. We also have ecology outings. There is a considerable emphasis on the process and the way we do things. We meet in a circle to stress that no one is an expert or valued more than another. We are conscious of different voices being heard; we encourage deeper dialogue and we are also conscious of where we get our funding from. This can change to relationship within the group and the grassroots. We have almost entirely funded ourselves, from individuals. That is our aim. Day-to-day work is done voluntarily. We are conscious of the pitfalls of applying for funding, getting a lot of money and then being dependent on that means to the extent we may begin to disconnect ourselves from real people. We are also conscious of the need for face to face communication in a world where technology has the capacity to undermine values to which we hold. So we emphasise, particularly with decision making for the need for face to face dialogue. There is something about the presence of people at the same time in a physical space that allows a group mind to emerge in a way that can’t happen to the same extent on the internet. In another sense I see this having a relationship with people and not just a funding proposal as, to an extent, trying to bring a quality of oneness, of unity to a group. These basic principles can easily be forgotten in a group when we focus on particular campaigns. As one of the people who plays a co-ordinating role, I see that as important. We are also inclusive; we are not just a Muslim organisation, but welcome people of all faiths. And ultimately I believe that any religion has to be able to transcend itself and be able to love and include others in that context. We have speakers from other organisations and faith traditions. This allows us to build relationships. We focus on creative solutions that are inexpensive, because money can be a way of undermining relationships and creating individualism. So having less money forces us to build relationships and enrich ourselves with a social wealth that we might otherwise be denied. We believe that the principles by which we work are as important as the work we do.