Islam and Environmental Responsibility

The Singaporean government tells people not to perform outdoor activities in September. A lot of big outdoor events have been called off. Schools are closed in four Malaysian states including the capital city. The people in charge of the Singapore Grand Prix have to keep an eye on the air pollution levels, and they give out protective masks on the racetrack. There are also 24 medical posts set up. There is a state of emergency in Indonesia, and limited visibility is making things worse for road traffic. Some flights that were supposed to go to Singapore had to land at different airports.

This is all because of the thick haze that was generated by forest fires in Indonesia. And all of this happens every year. This is because the forest lands are burned to make room for plantations that grow palm oil and paper. Indonesia is the third most polluted country in the world, behind the US and China, because of smoke from forest fires and burning peatlands. The rainforests of Sumatra, Kalimantan, and New Guinea are being cut down at an alarming rate. Since the 1990s, the country's hazardous emissions into the planet's atmosphere have roughly doubled.

The relationship between Islam and nature is a big issue for Indonesia

The main environmental challenge in modern-day Indonesia is the destruction of forests, which destroys their rich plant and animal life and causes damage to the world's ecology that cannot be fixed. The leaders of the Islamic community, which makes up up to 90% of the country's population, have raised a red flag in this country, which has the most Muslims in the world. The Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama organizations, which are two of the most important religious and educational groups in Islam, have been working in Indonesia for more than a hundred years.

Their purpose is to protect the environment. Their impact reaches tens of millions of loyal Muslims. They have a lot of power over regular people in the state, even in the most remote parts of the country, and in politics as well. Because of this, Islamic theologians, ideologists, and politicians are some of the most important people who work to protect the environment through Islam. And barely one-third of the people in Indonesia believe that air pollution is not a serious threat to their lives. Most Indonesians have a consumerist attitude toward nature.

People who live there must think that nature is there to feed them and give them other things they may sell to make money to support their families

To tell the poor, uneducated people about the harm they do to the environment, you shouldn't appeal to their reason. Instead, you should appeal to their feelings and emotions related to their beliefs and traditions. As a result, Islamic leaders often believe that it is perfectly acceptable to assume that people will talk about environmental issues during Friday prayers, when the most Muslims come to the mosque. They also believe that it is appropriate to show that environmental protection laws are part of the religious duties of truly devoted people.

The Quran and the Hadith (the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad) are the sources of Islamic environmental ethics. According to the Quranic view of the world, humans are the most important objects that God created. Because of this, they have both rights and obligations when it comes to environmental ethics. According to modern Islamic scholars, one of the most important things for a Muslim to do is to protect nature and living things, especially plants, animals, and water. Sharia says that you can exploit natural resources as long as you don't go overboard.

However, it also says that you have to protect the environment and keep it in balance

The Indonesian Council of Ulema's branch in Kalimantan has issued a fatwa saying that burning down forests to make room for plantations, livestock, and other agricultural fields (which releases smoke and other harmful substances into the air, polluting it and harming people's health and lives) is a serious violation of religious rules. Indonesian intellectuals place a lot of weight on the fact that the Prophet Muhammad came up with a system called hima. This system requires the creation of regions where forests, flora, wild creatures, and species that are at risk of going extinct are kept safe and protected.

The Prophet said that the highways, the shady trees where travelers used to stop, and the riverbanks were the three locations that should never be contaminated. The river itself shall not be less than half as wide as the protected area, which covers the complete banks of the river. The space around the trees that needs to be protected must be two and a half to three meters wide. There should be protection surrounding wells and other water sources, and it should be within a twenty-meter radius.

Conclusion

As we know, Muslims who go on the pilgrimage are not allowed to kill any living thing, not even a mosquito, and they are not allowed to break tree limbs. These will help keep Saudi Arabia's environment healthy, even though millions and millions of people visit the sacred sites every year for decades. Islamic higher education institutions in Indonesia will start to include the subjects and topics of the course of enlightenment of development of a new role of Islam in the world as well as their national environmental movement in their programs of learning and study.

The Ministry of Ecology has also worked closely with the religious schools, or pesantrens, to create the ecopasentrens program. This program holds competitions among the religious schools to see who can come up with the best projects to get local people to protect local plants and animals and restore the environment. The leaders of Muslim communities in Malaysia, Afghanistan, and Senegal are also interested in adopting Indonesia's experience to help them safeguard the environment after learning about Islamic principles in an effort to establish a green jihad at the local level.

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