Surah
29, Al-Ankabut:62-63:
Allahu yabsutur-rizqa limany-yashaa ‘u min
ibadihi wa yaqdiru lah.
God grants abundant sustenance, or gives it
in scant measure, to whichever He wills of His creatures:
Innal-laha bikulli shay’in Alim.
for behold, God has full knowledge of
everything. (62)
Wa la in-sa ‘altahum-man-nazzala minas-samaa
‘i maa ‘an-fa ‘ahya bihil- arda mim-ba di mawtiha laya
And thus it is: if thou ask them, ‘Who is it that sends down
water from the skies, giving life thereby to the earth after it had been
lifeless?’
-yaqulunn Allah.
- they will surely answer, ‘God.’
Qulil-hamdu lillah.
Say thou: ‘All praise is due to God alone.’
Bal aktharuhum la ya qilun.
But
most of them will not use their reason. (63)
When I was doing my doctoral
studies in international relations in the early 1990’s, I became intrigued by
the developing field of international environmental policy. Since
there was no course offered at the University of Kansas on the topic, I designed
a course myself and found a professor to supervise it. My daughter was three years old at the
time. Her crayon scribbles are still on
the notes I took for that class.
I read everything I could about policies
related to population trends, ozone depletion, pollution of all kinds, garbage
disposal, water resources, resource depletion, extinction rates, etc. I read about global treaties signed and
abrogated. I read about environmental
movements, legislative initiatives that could not get passed, or only in
inadequate forms. I read about the
history of the exploitation of carbon-based energy sources – basically coal and
oil - and the development of the corporations that control their exploitation
and distribution, megalithic entities built on our ever-escalating need for
energy, ungovernable by any single nation-state. But the most impactful of what I read was
about the consequences of climate change.
One analogy made by one of the
researchers really stuck in my mind - the story of the frog – maybe you’ve
heard it. If you put a live frog in
boiling water, it will immediately jump out and save itself. But if you put a frog in cool water and heat
the water very slowly, it will not recognize the critical point at which it
needs to jump out, and it will cook to death.
The researcher was alluding to greenhouse gases, implying that we will
pass the critical threshold before we can do anything to keep ourselves from
getting “cooked.”
My
research scared and depressed me…. so much so that I put aside the idea of
focusing
on environmental policy. I became one of
those people Naomi Klein refers
to
in her recent book, This Changes
Everything, those of us who are
“telling ourselves
comforting stories about how humans are clever and will come up with a technological
miracle that will safely suck the carbon out of the skies or magically turn
down the heat of the sun.”
Klein contends, “We deny because we
fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change
everything. And we are right.”[1]
Twenty odd years ago I could not
face the prospect of working with that knowledge day after day. I would, I felt, be immobilized by
despair. I needed to focus on something
that would allow me to nurture my marriage and raise my daughter. And
besides, I told myself, we will find technological solutions….
That was over 20 years ago. Now researchers are trying to figure out if
we have already passed the critical threshold.
Now my daughter is a Ph.D. student in Integrative Biology, studying the
history of life on earth and the iterations it has undergone, and she sends me
an article that begins with these words:
“Localized ecological systems are known
to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state [of being] to another when
they are forced across critical thresholds.
Here we review evidence that the global
ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a
planetary-scale transition as a result of human influence…. We summarize
evidence that such planetary scale critical transitions have occurred
previously in the biosphere, albeit rarely, and that humans are now forcing
another such transition, with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and
irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience.”[2]
The article continues, “… shifts …
can be difficult to anticipate, because the critical threshold is reached as incremental
changes accumulate and the threshold value is generally not known in advance.”
There is a lot of information in
this article about the interplay of all the ways in which humans have impacted
the global environment, but a few conclusions stand out.
“…if fertility rates
remain at 2005-2010 levels, [by 2100 – in 85 years - the earth’s population
will be 27,000,000,000]; this population size is not thought to be supportable)….
Climates found at
present on 10-48% of the planet are projected to disappear within a century,
and climates that contemporary organisms have never experienced are likely to
cover 12-39% of Earth. The mean global temperature by 2070 (or
possibly a few decades earlier) will be higher than it has been since the human
species evolved.”
The article concludes, “… averting
a planetary-scale critical transition demands global cooperation,” to reduce world population growth and per-capita
resource use, to replace fossil fuels, increase
the efficiency of food production and distribution, enhance efforts to manage
reservoirs of biodiversity and ecosystem services on land and in the oceans. “These
are admittedly huge tasks, but are vital if the goal of science and society is
to steer the biosphere towards conditions we desire, rather than those that are
thrust upon us unwittingly.”
There have been five mass
extinction events in the history of the earth, where 75% or more of the
existing species went extinct. We are in
the first throws of a 6th. Mass extinction. This is pretty scary stuff. This is cataclysmic. But there is a difference in my response to
this information now as opposed to 20 years ago. #1, I no longer see the option of pretending
it’s not happening. #2, my understanding
of my faith has grown and given me a new perspective on how to face the issue,
a new drive, and a new strength of purpose.
Pause…
As we know from the stories of the
prophets, cataclysm is no stranger to the Quran. The communities of the
earliest prophets - Nuh (Noah) Hud, Saleh, Lut (Lot), and Shoaib (Jethro), who
did not accept their prophets’ messages about the Oneness of God, were
completely destroyed. The Abrahamic
prophets - Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses) and all the Jewish prophets - Isaac,
Yacoub (Jacob), Yusuf (Joseph), Zakarriah, Yahya (John), and Esa (Jesus),
ending with Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, saw
a different fate for their communities.
For the most part, the enemies of Abraham
and the prophets who followed him were no longer completely destroyed. Some
of the greatest transgressors were destroyed, but the communities themselves
survived. Instead, Allah told Abraham to
migrate from his native land – from Mesopotamia to Palestine. The example of emigration would be followed by
Prophet Moses. In the case of the final
Abrahamic prophet, Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, after emigrating he returned to his
people, and they became his followers.
This began a new era.
When Prophet Muhammad performed the
rituals of Hajj at the end of his life, in every ritual he did, he said “I am
here doing what my father Abraham did, and here I am fulfilling his
prophecy.” The final day of this Hajj he
told his followers in his farewell speech, “Today I completed your faith, and I
fulfilled my mission. I want God to
witness, and I want you to be my witness.” He completed his message, and left this
world. 14 centuries later, we Muslims are
the progeny of his journey. The human
species has evolved through history to where we are now – a world where those
who study “the signs” of the earth are telling us that if we continue on our
present course, we will overwhelm the resource God gave us in trust, as His
Vice-Gerents of this planet.
And now I have to wonder if we have
come full circle in the prophetic narrative.
I had always counted the stories of the ancient prophets – those whose
communities were completely destroyed – as ancient history with no real
relevance to our lives. But this story – unless you are a believer
in science fiction scenarios of journeys to other planets – cannot end in
emigration. Are we facing our complete
and ultimate destruction, by our behaviors and the belief that God’s gift to us
includes the right to unlimited consumption, with no regard to collective needs
and consequences, or the sustainability of the planet God gave us in trust? In other words, are we to be destroyed by our
own pride and arrogance? As I see it,
all the signs – scientific and religious - point to one conclusion - this is a
defining time for the human species.
In Surah 22, Al-Hajj , Allah addressed the Prophet about those of his
time who would not accept the Divine origin of his messages:
And if they [who are bent on denying the
truth] give thee the lie, [O Muhammad, remember that long] before their time,
the people of Noah and [the tribes of] Ad and Thamud gave the lie [to their
prophets], (42) as did the people of Abraham, and the people of Lot, (43) and
the dwellers of Madyan; and [so too] Moses was given the lie [by Pharoah].
And in every case I gave rein, for awhile,
to the deniers of the truth: but then I
took them to task – and how awesome was My denial [of them]! (44)
And how many a township have We destroyed
because it had been immersed in evildoing – and now they [all] lie deserted,
with their roofs caved in! And how many
a well lies abandoned, and how many a castle that [once] stood high! (45)
Will we human beings bring on such
devastation that our whole planet sees this fate? God only knows. If it is our collective destiny is to destroy
the life support system that sustains us, Allah reminds us – and science
confirms - that we only destroy ourselves.
Quran tells us that God made worlds before us, and can make new worlds
again. Science tells us that the five previous mass
extinctions were followed by the evolution of completely new species of
life.
Naomi Klein concludes, after her
exhaustive analysis of the reasons why we have been unable to effectively
address climate change:
“Fundamentally,
the task is to articulate … an alternative worldview to rival the one at the
heart of the ecological crisis – [a worldview that is] embedded in
interdependence rather than hyper-individualism, reciprocity rather than
dominance, and cooperation rather than hierarchy.”
Wasn’t this the very message that
Allah delivered to us through our prophet?
Surah Al-Hajj continues:
Have they, then, never journeyed about the
earth, letting their hearts gain wisdom, and causing their ears to hear? Yet, verily, it is not their eyes that have
become blind – but blind have become the hearts that are in their breasts! (46)
And [so, O Muhammad,] they challenge thee to
hasten the coming upon them of God’s chastisement: but God never fails to fulfill His promise –
and, behold, in thy Sustainer’s sight a day is like a thousand years of your
reckoning. (47)
And to how many a community that was
immersed in evildoing have I given rein for awhile! But then I took it to task: for with Me is all journey’s end! (48)
Klein goes on
“… in the hot and
stormy future we have already made inevitable … an unshakable belief in the
equal rights of all people and a capacity for deep compassion will be the only
things standing between civilization and barbarism.”
From Surah 35: Fatir (The
Originator):
Verily, God knows the hidden reality of the
heavens and earth: [and] behold, He has full knowledge of what is in the hearts
[of people]. (38)
He it is who has made you inherit the
earth. Hence, he who is bent on denying
the truth - this denial of his will fall back upon him: for their denial of this truth does but add
to the deniers’ loathsomeness in their Sustainer’s sight and, thus, their
denial of this truth does but add to the deniers’ loss. (39)…
Verily, it is God [alone] who upholds the
celestial bodies and the earth, lest they deviate [from their orbits] – for if
they should ever deviate, there is none that could uphold them after He will
have ceased to do so.
[But] verily, He is ever-forbearing,
much-forgiving. (41)
As it is, they [who are averse to the truth]
swear by God with their most solemn oaths that if a warner should ever come to
them, they would follow his guidance better than any of the communities [of old
had followed the warner sent to them]:
but now that a warner has come unto them, [his call] but increases their
aversion, (42) their arrogant behavior on earth, and their devising of evil
[arguments against God’s messages].
Yet [in the end,] such evil scheming will
engulf none but its authors; and can they expect anything but [to be made to
go] the way of those [sinners] of olden times?...
Now if God were to take men to task for
whatever they commit [on earth], He would not leave a single living creature
upon its surface. However, He grants them
respite for a term set: but when their
term comes to an end – then, verily, [they come to know that] God sees all that
is in [the hearts of] His servants. (45)
Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, was the
last of the Prophets who came to share the message of God’s Oneness and
transcendant power. But he was not the
last of the warners. God gave Adam – all
of us – the ability to name things – consciousness. We have used that ability to develop a system
of understanding God’s creation – science.
That understanding is now showing us the enormity of God’s gift of
freedom of choice. We are on track to
collectively destroy our life support system, maybe not in our lifetimes, but
within those of our grandchildren. We
can only pray that we have the will and the ability to save it.
I am not pretending that I have any
answers to climate change. I am among those who live in a developed
country, a lifestyle based on the use of fossil fuels and consumption way
beyond my basic needs. According to the
calculations of The Nature Conservancy, I, as an individual, contribute
approximately 35 tons of co2 to the atmosphere every year. And I am not going to give up my house or my
car or my flights or my lights or my water, or much of anything, really. And it may well be that Allah knows we will
self-destruct, and that is our fate. But
my heart tells me that even if that is the case, I do not want to be counted
among those who give in to denial or despair. I have had the advantage of an education and I
am aware that I need to educate myself more and figure out what changes I can realistically make moving forward… changes
that reflect my love and gratitude for this planet, for the gift of my life on
it, and my own responsibility before our Creator. Sharing this is part of my prayer that I will
keep that commitment.
2:286 The last ayah of Surah 2, The Cow
Rabbana
la tu’akhizna in-nasina aw akh-ta’na.
Our Lord!
Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake.
Rabbana
wa la tahmil ‘alayna isran kama hamaltahu ‘ala-llatheena min qablina.
Our Lord!
Do not load on us a severe test as You did burden on those before us.
Rabbana
wa la tuhammilna ma la taqata lana bih, wa- ‘fu ‘anna wa ‘ghfirlana warhamna
Our Lord!
Do not impose upon us that which we have not the strength to bear; and pardon
us and forgive us and have mercy on us.
Anta
Maulana fansurna ‘alal-ghawmil kafirin.
You are
our Defender, so help us against the ungrateful people.
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