"Islam" by Richard C. Foltz was a fascinating article. Seeing that my research paper is on Islam, I found a lot of interesting and useful information in this essay. Seeing that 1.2 billion people around the world today identify with Islam on some level immediately shows that it is a global religion followed by many. Most people don't identify Islam as a religion that seems to be in touch with the environment, but this essay presently proves otherwise; Islam is very much an ecologically oriented religion. I like how Foltz made sure to define how he was going to use the word "Islamic" in his essay. The way he chose to define words gave me a lot of guidance on how I should be clear to use certain words in my essay and how I should make sure to define these words in the right context. Foltz described Islamic environmentalism as "an environmentalism that can be demonstrably enjoined by the textual sources of Islam". And then he went on to describe Muslim environmentalism, which "draws its inspiration from a variety of sources possibly including but not limited to religion." Foltz explores a lot of different aspects of ecology in Islam throughout his essay in an interesting and fascinating way so it was pleasant for me to read.
Zoya
After reading this article there seems to be a common thread in not only the religions we have researched in class but my religion for my paper as well. Most religions want to take pro-environmentalism stances yet they cannot follow through with correct actions. The article discusses the importance of nature in the religion of Islam and the connection to all living beings yet some of the most anti-environmentalist countries are predominately Muslim. I think it is difficult for these religions to find ways of practicing their theology concerning the environment. In the article Foltz says that in Islam they have even tried to appoint leaders to environmental councils but they have no environmental background and it is still a slow progression towards action.
ReplyDeleteI also think it is interesting that overpopulation has been included in the issue of environmentalism. Islam, like Mormonism does not see overpopulation as an issue and therefore does not see it as a problem towards the environment. I would be interested to examine the relation between overpopulation and the environment more thoroughly.
Foltz's article definitely makes it clear that, like Andrea said, even though the environment is important in Islam, many people have a hard time acting on that aspect of the religion. This makes me wonder how that makes sense, and how people can be so religious but at the same time ignore important parts of their religion. I think that this disconnection comes out of the ignorance that is embedded in many of the people, not by their own fault. The governments in many Muslim countries do not share much of the truth about environmental issues with the people, who are probably unaware of the real problems surrounding them and the fact that theta government is disobeying their religion. Just something that seems interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteThis article was interesting in that it helped explain why there is so often a gap between theory and practice in Islam when it comes to the environment. Islam is in theory and environmentally friendly religion since it recognizes the importance of stability and even views some trees and plants as being blessed. Sound environmental theory, however, does always translate into practice. In this reading, the main reason for this gap is because many Muslims live in developing countries where it is much tougher to be environmentally friendly. Even though some of these countries are very rich, they lack the infrastructure and institutions to adopt environmentally friendly practices. Also, many Muslim countries area very arid and therefore require much more water for irrigation etc.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I learned from this reading was that the word Muslim means submission to God. It is interesting that Muslims view everything as being in submission to God. This view is not that different from some Christian's views of the world, its just a different name.
I too discovered some of the complex aspects of the nation that is Islam. While he clarified that environmentalism is an integral part of the faith, I could not help but sympathize with some the comments made by Maggie and Andrea. Namely, the skyrocketing birthrates of some Muslim ( and Christian) nations. Islam, like Christianity, and likely all world religions recognize in some fashion a human responsibility to it. In fact, many faiths lay out specific directions and protocol for how to treat the environment with respect. However, like many of the concepts in the scientific realm ( ideal gas law, Nernst equation, etc etc) these are ideal types. They do not always ( if at all) exist in nature. Sometimes it is impossible to follow such strict guidelines. Why should we expect oil producing countries (which coincidentally happen to be under predominately Muslim lands) to abandon their easiest and most lucrative industry? Who are we to make those calls, or to assume that we would not do the same given the same resources. While agree with Foltz that many Muslims ( as adherents of all different faiths) do not follow the guidelines set out by the Hadith and the Quran, it is mostly the consequence of abject poverty resulting in ignorance. I believe that the green movement would be empowered by a wave of education in the developing worlds in order to better reconnect the many believers in the world to the environmentalist roots of their religions.
ReplyDelete- Alex Leeds
Like many others, I too am writing my paper on Islam so this article was a great outlet for me. Foltz basically reiterated many information that I already knew or assumed. I agreed with his points and found his article very interesting. I liked how he incorporated many Qur’anic sayings or ideas from Hadith. For example, “O Children of Adam! Look to your adornment at every place of worship, and eat and drink, but be not wasteful. Lo! He [Allah] loves not the wasteful.” I liked this quotation because it shows how God does not want people to be wasteful and the Qur’an is evidence of Islamic ideals in sustainability. In addition, Foltz showed how if all Muslims practiced the religion 100% then there would be no environmental crisis. But it is the gap between theology and practice that leaves room for error. As a response, many Islamic countries have tried to implement environmental protection plans and agencies, but they end up making changes that are not necessary and end up missing the bigger picture.
ReplyDeleteThe article gave a good explanation for the fragmentation between Islam and the environment. Many of the countries where Islam is the dominant religion are impoverished and have corrupt governments. Media censorship and lack of education in these poor undeveloped countries have not surfaced environmental alarm in these particular areas. Personally I think being "green" can be extremely costly from my own experiences. The majority of the population of these third world countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria cannot afford such expensive products. Also, the environment isn't a top priority when you have to worry about where your child's next meal is going to come from. The lack of education in these countries is also a major variable in the fracture between Islam and the environment. Economically it is impossible for Islam to warrant concern or attention to the environment. Islam as a religion doesn't fail the environment, the social and economic circumstances of the countries where it is most predominant forbids room for such concern.
ReplyDeleteI, too, found this article to be very informative. Islam is surprisingly very in-tune with the environment. It puts a decisive emphasis on the importance of the earth and it has a great many holy places. Though humans play the dominant role on this planet—as they do in most religions—the importance of animals and plants is very apparent. The disconnection, as others mentioned, between Muslims and the environment comes not from the religion itself but from the ruling governments of Muslim countries. Some of these countries—most especially those in the Middle East and North Africa—have economies focused on oil-production, which forces them to be less environmentally conscious than they perhaps should be. Hopefully, as oil-producing practices improve and are reformed, this will change. Also, as someone mentioned, it is difficult for people who worry about what to eat the next day to “be green.” I, too, have found that it can be expensive to “be green” or to be healthy. Oftentimes, in some slummy neighborhoods, fresh and organic food is simply unavailable. I recall reading a TIME article once in which a woman stated that she had to take a 30 minute bus ride just to reach a grocery store that sold fresh produce.
ReplyDeleteI found that this article brought up many of the interesting points I've been wanting to know about and research since we've started this course. The article talks about the huge number of Muslims in the world and therefore one can imagine the large number of poor Muslims. With all the hype in developed countries about being green and spending billions of dollars to continue our methods of survival in ways less impactive on the environment, we often forget how unimportant such a concept is to families that are worried about mere shelter over their heads. This reminds me a lot about the factory farming debate. Yes it is certainly important to promote the healthiest and most animal-friendly types of farming, but if this mean we are not getting maximum amount of food for as inexpensively as possible, as we, while better and saving a farm animal's live, hurting and killing our own?
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of this problem has to do with a lack of knowledge about how we can better our behaviors in regards to the environment. The article talked about how Islam has tried to find leaders to support environmentalism in Islam. However, these leaders often lack a strong background in environmentalism and therefore are limited in their ability to lead and persuade and innovate. I think all these problems are tied together and essentially have to do with a need to increase our studies of environmentalism and methods we can use to be more gentle and friendly to the world we live in.
Like Andrea, I also found it interesting that the article addressed overpopulation and how Islam does not regard it as a problem. I understand that during the time when the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran were conceived overpopulation was never even remotely considered an issue. However, as humanity enters an age where we are consuming resources faster than they can be replenished and polluting our world with everything from toxic waste to light pollution, I am having a difficult understanding why overpopulation continues to be ignored by the Islam faith. Overpopulation is the source of all our environmental degradation issues. There are simply too many people demanding too many resources and we have exceeded earth’s carrying capacity. We have already reaching the tipping point of the world’s oil reserves and it is projected that our ability to draw oil profitably will end in 2050. This is just the first resource of many that is being over consumed. Unless there is immediate and dramatic change to the world’s human conception practice, we will literally overpopulate ourselves to death.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that this article emphasized that although the Islamic religion (as well as many others) teach environmental preservation, this does not actually always translate into the real world. In the end we are all human and environmental degradation is a result of social injustice, not ones religious beliefs. However Islam is very different than the other religions in that Muslims consider all of Gods creation (ie. Earth) to be inherently Muslim, and only humans have free will to follow God or not. Although Christianity and Judaism say that God created everything, they do not refer to nature as inherently "Christian" or "Judaic". Thats why I find it so interesting to say that everything is "Muslim" but not everyone has accepted that they are. Also, Islam reminded me of the Catholic understanding of the common good because "1) nonvital needs are subordinate to vital needs; 2)the needs of the poor take precedence over the needs of the rich; 3)one may not cause harm in order to obtain a benefit". These conditions are very similar to the Catholic understanding of the common good so that one person does not take more than their share of the resources. In the article there was a section addressing exactly this argument from contemporary Muslim environmentalists that state that Westerners are consuming far more than their allotted share of the common good, although Muslim countries are continuing to develop and follow in suit. But as I said earlier, we are all human and there will always be hypocrisy and a margin for error when it comes to dealing with nature, despite what your beliefs may be.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of socioeconomic development in much of the Muslim world spells disaster for the environment for a few reasons. Like many of you have said, the fewer resources people have at their disposal, the less able they are to be "green". A second major effect of poverty is the lack of education that generally accompanies. The poorest people in the world often do not have access to the type of education that includes teachings about environmentalism. Because of this, the amount of information available to many people around the world is highly limited. These multiple factors show how difficult it will be to bring green technologies and practices all around the globe.
ReplyDeleteIslam is one of the biggest religious groups. After I read those articles about Islam, I feel like that Muslims pay more attention to the nature. Muslims believe that their God made this earth for them and the earth is a gift that God gave human. Human can use it and human also need to protect it. Muslims also know that human just help God to manage the earth. There is a theory in the Islam that everyone has tow lives. One is the life now that is temperate and the other is after life that lasts forever. However, what you did in the first life will be judged in the second life. I think this theory somehow asks Muslims to protect the environment. If they protect environment, they will have a good result in the second part of life. There is another reason that Muslims think it is their responsible to protect the environment. Since they believe that everyone has two parts of life, they think it is their responsibility to protect the environment for their offspring. Muslims also very respect for the nature because they think that both human and earth are God’s creations, and both of them at the same level. I think this is interesting, and even though I am not a Muslim, I still like the theory that they have about the earth and the nature.
ReplyDeleteThis article was interesting to read. In general, I think that I have enjoyed learning about Islam the most out of the religions we have covered in class. This may be because it is the one I am least familiar with or just that the religion is so different from mine. From this article I have a new respect for Islam's relationship with the environment. After Friday's lecture I was thinking about the Haj and how many aspects of the Islam related to the environment and this article made my understanding even deeper. I also did not realize how big the Muslim population was.
ReplyDeleteI find Celia's point very interesting. I, too, didn't think about the fact that before we can talk about "going green" we need to take the circumstances of different people into consideration. I agree that this is a lack of knowledge about the Muslim population that lead us to this attitude.
In general, I found Richard Foltz' article to be very interesting. He discussed a lot of interesting things that really made me question religion in general, not just Islam. For example, at one point Foltz discusses about how even though the environment is important in the Islamic religion, many followers fail to respect their land and treat it accordingly. This makes me wonder how anyone can call themselves religious if they can just ignore such vital aspects to their religion. Can someone truly be religious because they follow some aspects of there religion while ignoring others? I personally believe that if someone is devout to their respective religion, they will follow all rules and ideals of that religion.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous posts that the Qur'an-and all religious texts more or less-is dated. If you really think about it, it's an impossible task to attempt to assimilate present day norms to ideals that were established in a time without electricity, countries, and even contact with people outside of the immediate community unless it was for war. I think that fundamentally, this is one of Religion's biggest failures. Instead of living lives according to rules of morality and virtue people find it necessary to exist by a code of laws that if written now would seem extremely backwards and out of touch. I don't think the Qur'an is the sole bearer of this burden but is instead just one more cog in broken wheel. Religion needs to be revamped and re-written for a modern era. Throw out the polygamy, the strict dietary laws, the sabbaths, and half hearted attempt to address nature through planting crops. Instead, bring to the forefront the ideas that hold the religion together and then change them, for the better, to fit into the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteNasr covered a lot of different issues in this article but I think that there is one he missed which is crucial to the issue. Many Muslim countries have huge oil reserves. Petroleum and human dependence on it is a huge factor in the environmental crisis. In order to combat the crisis we need to explore alternative, renewable energy sources. However many Muslim countries have a distinct interest financially in keeping humans dependent on oil. This is made worse by the fact that Muslim countries are behind the curve on technological advancements, meaning they won't benefit from green technology financially as countries where those technologies are developed will. This ties in to what Nasr was saying about the state being one of the controlling and limiting factors in changing the ways that Muslims view the environment.
ReplyDeleteIts a shame that there is such a strong theological foundation for environmental respect and stewardship in the Islamic faith but that conditions today prevent or make difficult that environmental stewardship
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