“Assuredly the creation of the heavens and the earth is a greater (matter) than the creation of men: Yet most men understand not.”(Surat Ghafir: 40:57).

The concept of responsible management and taking care of the natural environment is firmly embedded in the teachings of Islam, so Muslims shouldn’t be reminded that living an eco-friendly lifestyle is part of their religion. Or do they?

Fazlun Khalid, a man synonymous with the eco-Islam movement and one of the most influential contemporary Muslims, claims that people nowadays, including Muslims, are getting more and more disconnected from nature.

It’s not only Islam that teaches respect for the natural environment, but it’s an idea rooted in every religious system in the world.

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Yet as the philosophy of the Post-Enlightenment Era divided the sacrum from the Profanum, industrialization, and urbanization allowed people to live lives that are physically disconnected from nature, the sacrosanct link between the Creator and the creation has gone into the abyss.

The result is a new world order in which the decisions are made by the people who care more for economic growth and the disastrous consequences this growth causes to the planet. And while environmentalists of all faiths are proclaiming the doomsday for Earth, the decision-makers seem deaf or oblivious to their reasoning and continue pushing our civilization towards environmental disaster.

So is everything lost for us and future generations?

Not if we wake up now and make radical changes to our lives. But it’s not going to be easy as we have to take a step back and give up on luxuries that we got accustomed to. We have to go back to the Prophetic tradition of simplicity. As Khalid put it: “We have to live simply, so that others may simply live.”

Reconnecting with Nature seen through a faith perspective was the subject of a series of lectures followed by discussion organized by Dr. Rizwan Nawaz at Leeds University on November 12.

Khalid was the first speaker with his lecture on ‘Reconnecting with Nature – An Islamic Perspective’; and his vast knowledge and experience in the field of conservationism made the listeners realize the seriousness of the problem.

His lecture provided an exposition of the problem, while the other speakers tried to present the possible solutions.

Emma Clark, a well-established international garden designer specializing in Islamic gardens, a writer and a senior tutor and lecturer at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London gave a presentation on ‘The Islamic garden as an opportunity for bridge-building between cultures’.

She started by explaining the concept of Islamic garden and the philosophy underlying all of its elements and went on to point out how the sacred art of Islamic gardens, the indisputable beauty and the magnitude of nature can speak and be understood by people from all the cultural and religious backgrounds and help build bridges between the communities.

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