Unit 3 Paper

Deep Ecology and Islam?!

Hisham El Sherbini

AMSR7

Team 2

December 2016

Table of Contents

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1

2. What is Deep Ecology? .................................................................................................................. 1

3. Islam and Thinking ........................................................................................................................ 2

4. Islam and Deep Ecology ................................................................................................................ 4

5. If that’s the case then where is the Misconception coming from? ............................................... 5

6. Conclusion & Reflection ................................................................................................................ 6

7. Action ............................................................................................................................................ 6

8. References .................................................................................................................................... 7

9. Appendix ....................................................................................................................................... 8

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1. INTRODUCTION

It always puzzled when it is claimed that science and religion are opposites; that notion that

a man of science cannot, possibly, believe in God or in a religion and vice versa. It also

puzzled me the notion that “creation” could be the opposite opinion or view of “evolution”.

My experience of Islamic teachings encouraged my interest in science as a means of

understanding the world around and inside us, and encouraged the exploration of the

theory of “creation” in addition to “a” theory of “evolution”.

And I do not think it was just me who is misled to think so. I mean, after all, the very first

word of the Quran (the Holy Book of Islam) that was revealed to Prophet Muhammed

(Peace Be Upon Him) was as instruction to “Read”. Not just that, but the rest of the first

verses immediately introduced the “science/technology” of creation of man and

emphasized the “education of man”: ‘Read in the name of your Lord, who created, created

man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is most bountiful. (He who taught) the use of the pen

taught man which he knew not.' (Sura al-'alaq (96:1-3) cited in Mission Islam, 2016).

What provoked me even more and led me to write this paper is the claim, I thought I heard

during Workshop 3 at Schumacher, that religion and Deep Thinking do not go together and

that we need to “free” ourselves from religion in order to be able to think deeply, question

deeply and experience deeply.

In this paper, I wanted to inquire whether I was misled to understand that Islam actually

encourages Deep Thinking and, if I was not misled, then why could that be a “common”

claim. I also wanted to inquire whether some Muslims do not get that same picture and, if

so, what led them to that.

2. WHAT IS DEEP ECOLOGY?

The term “Deep Ecology” was coined by Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, in 1973. He

introduced it to environmental literature in an attempt to address ethical questions about

how we should live. He realised that ecological science, which is concerned with facts and

logic alone, is not enough and that we need ecological wisdom by concentrating on deep

experience, deep questioning and deep commitment (Harding, 2016 & Drengson, 2012).

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Deep experience is often what gets us started along a deep ecological journey. It is generally

spontaneous, it is not looked for or expected. It exposes a new sense of belonging to an

intelligent interconnected universe with objects being nodes in a vast mesh of relationships

(Harding, 2016).

Deep experience often leads to deep questioning of our purposes and values, right down to

fundamental root causes and, more importantly, translating these into decisions, lifestyle

and action (Harding, 2016 & Drengson, 2012).

Combining deep experience with deep questioning brings up deep commitment to

fundamental change through peaceful and democratic actions leading towards ecological

sustainability, ‘extending care to humans and deepening care for non-humans’ (Harding,

2016)

It is worth highlighting the presence of the term “Shallow Ecology” which, Drengson (2012)

argues, Naess might not have seen it as necessarily incompatible with the former one. Some

definitions indeed follow that idea such as when Drengson (2012) & Harding (2016) describe

Shallow Ecology as a short-term approach that attempts to “green” business and industry by

promoting technological fixes but that also ensures the continuance of business as usual.

But perhaps by portraying it as ‘an anthropocentric environmental ethics that presupposes

that only man has value in itself’, Lavik (2010) argues its contrast with Deep Ecology being a

‘non-anthropocentric environmental ethics that presupposes that nature has value in itself’.

3. ISLAM AND THINKING

“Thinking” in Islam is not only encouraged and portraited as a form of worship but is

considered vital for recognizing Allah through His creations. In the Quran, the Arabic word

much used to refer to Deep Thinking and Deep Questioning is “Tafakkor” and its generally

accepted equivalents appear in the Quran over 150 times. Table 1 below illustrates just a

sample of that:

Table 1 – Sample of Aayaat (Verses) of Thinking

English Arabic Number of Verses

Don’t they see? alam-ya-ra? 64

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To see yan-zo-roon 25

To use their minds ya’a-qe-loon 22

To know yaf-qa-hoon 13

To really see yub-se-roon 13

To think ya-ta-fakka-roon 11

Those who have minds ulol-albab 9

To question ya-ta-sa-aloon 8

Those of intelligence ulen-noha 2

Those who have vision ulel-absar 2

(Saleh, 2012)

The scope of questioning and study is as big as the universe itself with all the known and

unknown creations including, but not limited to, stars, earth, water, air, plants, animals,

birds and human beings. Evidence from the Quran includes: ‘Say, Observe what is in the

heavens and earth’ (Sura Yunus (10:100) cited in Quran.com, 2016a) and ‘Indeed, in the

creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs

for those of understanding’ (Sura Ali Imran (3:190) cited in Quran.com, 2016b). More about

the intrinsic value of the creations of Allah including man, clouds, camels, cattle, water, wind

and the universe can be found in the Appendix.

Interestingly and contrary to common belief, Islam did not suggest any specific method,

tool, or approach in terms of “how” to explore, study, and question. Islam only guides the

mind in three areas: 1) beliefs, 2) principles of character (akhlaq) at the general and specific

levels, and 3) Sharia (Islam's legal system). Other than that, the mind is free to work aiming

at righteousness (Saleh, 2012).

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4. ISLAM AND DEEP ECOLOGY

In Islam, the interaction with nature echoes the definition of Deep Ecology above in that all

objects or creations have intrinsic value rather than Shallow Ecology with its view of only

Man having value and can consume and exploit surrounding elements freely. In Islam, this

interaction is clearly controlled and directed by such foundational religio-ethical precepts as

mercy, kindness and compassion as well as balance, moderation, equilibrium and harmony.

In addition, it involves gratitude, thankfulness and appreciation. These principles and the

operative ones derivable from them, ‘when systematically understood and implemented

through the jurisprudence of the environment, result in ecological health of the socio-

natural environment’ (Setia, 2007, p.117).

A lot of evidence exists. For example, Man is asked to have an attitude of spiritual humility

in the form of “walking lightly on earth” as revealed in Sura Al-Furqan (25:63) cited in

Quran.com, 2016c): ‘The faithful servants of the Beneficent are they who tread upon the

earth gently’. As Setia (2007, p.120) puts it: ‘reflective, thinking Muslims today can critically

appropriate the secular, quasi-paganistic Gaian (Lovelock & Lovelock, 2000) notion of

reducing one’s ‘ecological footprint’ (Rees, 1992) and re-ground it into an authentic Islamic

eco-spiritual ethos of the environment’.

Another example is the mercy towards animals when Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) has

‘forbidden the beating of animals on the face, and prohibited the thawing of stones at

animals. He recommended that every care should be taken when slaughtering animals’

(Heesen, 2015). Following him, Caliph Omar, one of the most distinguished of the Prophet's

companions, was known, on one occasion, that he passed his hand over the wound of a

camel intending to help heal the beast, saying, "I fear God may seek retributions from me

for the pain you suffer" (Foltz, 2014).

Deep reflection and contemplation are cornerstones to Islamic belief and they are the ones

that lead to a pro-active and intrinsic attitude towards nature; an attitude that is an

‘essential, inseparable aspect of Islamic axiology or value system’ (Setia, 2007, p.147).

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5. IF THAT’S THE CASE THEN WHERE IS THE MISCONCEPTION COMING FROM?

To answer that question, I reached out to fellow Muslims interviewing them and asking

them about their view in terms of the main inquiry above. The sample was small but it was

meant to be just suggestive of the possible reasons behind that misconception.

My questions, in the following order, were:

1) Do you believe that Deep Thinking, Deep Questioning, and Deep Commitment

towards Action are some of the main principles of Islam?

2) If so, do you believe that all or at least the majority of Muslims are aware and are

practicing that?

3) If not (following a Root Cause Analysis technique such as the 5 Why’s (Jones &

Womack, 1996)), I asked Why is that do you think? And with every answer, I asked

the Why question again, and again.

There was an agreement between all interviewees that, indeed, Deep Ecology with its

elements of Deep Experiencing, Deep Questioning and Deep Commitment resonates very

much with the principles of Islam and that it is not just encouraged but it is considered a

form of worship that gets us closer to the Creator.

They also unanimously agreed that they believe that the majority of Muslims are either not

aware or do not understand Deep Ecology in Islam or unaware of how to practice it.

When I asked Why is that the case, they all attributed it to the lack of comprehensive Islamic

Education whether through mainstream channels such as Schools or Media or through

Parenting, Extended Family or Society.

When I asked the question Why again, they suggested two main reasons. The first being a

political one and the second being an economical one. As for the political one, they agreed

that, over the last century or more, the leaders of the Islamic countries have been blinded

by money and power and they saw that the only way to maintain that is to control

Education and to restrict comprehensive Islamic Education especially in terms of those deep

and core principles under consideration in this paper. Those leaders, allegedly, got

threatened by message of Islam, being a comprehensive way of life that champions social

justice, equality, fairness and balance between all creatures, that it could shake their

thrones. At the same time, and for similar reasons like those that cause a conflict between

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grassroots movements and establishments, the interviewees expressed their view of the

conflict between Islam and Western principles and values which also, in their eyes, puts

pressure by Western politics and mainstream media to limit the unveiling of the deep

principles of Islam.

The second reason, being economical, interestingly and unexpectedly, was suggested to be

because of Capitalism and how families, including both parents, are struggling to make ends

meet. They are continuously stressed and under pressure to make a living that they have

little, if any, time or energy left to educate their children about the deep principles of Islam

especially in the face of another element of Capitalism which is the absurd advertising of

materialistic objects and possessions that is meant to sway children, from a young age, from

what really matters.

6. CONCLUSION & REFLECTION

There is a lot of evidence, some of it we tried to illustrate in this paper, that demonstrate the

inclusion of the principles of Deep Ecology within Islam.

Once again, I seemed to have got more than what I bargained for. Even though I covered Capitalism

in my first 2 papers, I was not looking for it here. Interestingly, it was brought up again by the

interviewees as a core reason, besides the political one, for the state of affairs.

7. ACTION

As a result of all the above and understanding that the main issue here is the lack of

comprehensive Islamic Education targeting Muslims and also the lack of comprehensive

Islamic awareness towards non-Muslims, I can now realize that the action I need to take or,

rather, my duty, is to counteract the bigotry, xenophobia and Islamophobia of mainstream

media and politics and to spread the awareness at a pace and scale that needs to be much

bigger than the efforts of the dark side.

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8. REFERENCES

Drengson, A. (2012). Some Thought on the Deep Ecology Movement. Retrieved 03 January,

2017 from http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm

Foltz, R. (2014). Animals in Islamic traditions and Muslim cultures. Oneworld Publications.

Harding, S. (2016). What is Deep Ecology? Retrieved 20 December, 2016 from

https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/learning-resources/what-is-deep-ecology

Heesen, C. (2015). “Islam and Deep Ecology” and the idea of “sacredness”. Retrieved 03

January, 2017 from http://wordpress.conncoll.edu/rel198heesen/2015/11/15/islam-and-

deep-ecology-and-the-idea-of-sacredness/

Jones, D. and Womack, J. (1996) Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your

Corporation, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lavik, T. (2010). Deep ecology and liberalism. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from

https://www.wildproject.org/journal/8-lavik

Lovelock, J. & Lovelock, J. E. (2000). Gaia: A new look at life on earth. Oxford Paperbacks.

Mission Islam. (2016). Beginning of Revelation. Retrieved 16 December, 2016 from

https://www.missionislam.com/quran/beginrevelation.htm

Quran.com. (2016a). Sura Yunus. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from https://quran.com/10

Quran.com. (2016b). Sura Ali Imran. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from https://quran.com/3

Quran.com. (2016c). Sura Al Furqan. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from https://quran.com/25

Rees, W. E. (1992). Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban

economics leaves out. Environment and urbanization, 4(2), 121-130.

Saleh, M. (2012). The Obligation of Thinking in Islam: Relevance to the Q-cip Model.

Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from

http://muslimeducators.com/integration%20articles/Integration%20Article%204.pdf

Setia, A. (2007). The Inner Dimension of going Green: articulating an Islamic deep-

ecology. Islam & Science, 5(2), 117-151.

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9. APPENDIX