Religious Environmentalism: Yet Another Instance of Pigeonholing
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
18 August
2023
"People trying to save Amazon rain forests
may be believers as well as non-believers. Activists and environmental
crusaders having NO faith in god and religion are also equally active like
those who're devout believers and do this as a service to god and religion. But
knowingly or unknowingly, everyone involved in it wants to save humanity. That's
the foremost aim of all. Religion doesn't and mustn't make a huge difference in
this particular context...."
Richard Dawkins, 2020
Though the
writer has noble intentions, enshrinement of all lofty virtues for the good of
humanity and calling it Religious Environmentalism sounds like our megalomaniac
PM's Jumle Baazi (rhetoric/witticism).
Agreed, Dr Javed Akhatar hasn't coined this discipline and
it's not so new, but the point is, why yet another pigeonholing is required,
that too with a religious tag? This sounds like Jaggi's ' Inner Engineering.'
The great
French linguist and the Father of Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida aptly said
that we're more into naming and phrasing and less into working and
implementing.
There's
also no denying the fact that Islam offers a useful perspective of
environmentalism through two primary themes.
The first
is the "glory and logic of the cosmos and of the cyclical regeneration of
life" that is visible through Qur'anic passages, particularly ones
referencing stewardship (Khalifa).
The second
theme is the very environmental basis from which Islam was founded, an
environment where natural resources, especially water, fruit trees, and
livestock have always had to be carefully conserved to ensure human survival, a
concern which is inevitably reflected in the Qur'an.
Hinduism
and other faiths also put an emphasis on the conservation and upkeep of the
environment for the symbiotic co-existence of nature and human civilization. It
must be noted that the term Religious Environmentalism was actually rejected by
Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman because of its specific nomenclature (religion).
They suggested Anthropic or Anthropogenic Environmentalism which's nonspecific
as well as non-religious.
So many
atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, Ayan Hirsi Ali,
Daniel Dennett, yours truly are associated with this movement to save the
environment and the earth. It's a universal concern, not a religious one. Don't
limit its scope and ambit.
----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/religious-environmentalism-pigeonholing/d/130470
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