Academic Essay

Islam’s and Muslims’ Response to the Environmental Crisis — a Review

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Since the turn of the century, climate change and the environmental crisis has become an increasingly important topic globally. Whilst most of the discourse revolves around the secular narrative, there has also been discussion around its impact on Muslim populations with steps taken to formulate an Islamic response to the issues. Indeed, environmentalism in Islam has its foundations in the Qur’an, in which the burdensome task of protecting Earth is given to humans. Furthermore, the environment is understood to be an embodiment of God’s mercy and a sign through which humans can develop an “awareness and understanding” of God. Therefore, due to the close relationship between spirituality and environmental conservation, much of the literature argues that a spiritual crisis underpins the current environmental crisis. This is still an ongoing area of research, however, with the recent virtual conference on “Islam, Environmental Science and Conservation” showing that there remains active scholarship into environmental readings of classical Islamic literature. Indeed, Muslim environmentalist groups in the UK use a combination of textual sources and critical interpretation to develop their environmental positions and determine possible solutions to environmental problems, with the Islamic Foundation of Ecology…