Some Christian sermons have been getting greener and greener lately.
It’s a part of a concerted effort to get church-goers on board with environmental volunteerism and
advocacy. American Muslims have been taking a hard look at the environment, too. Some
Islamic leaders hope Muslims will get fired up to fight global warming, deforestation, and other
environmental problems. Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
Some Christian sermons have been getting greener and greener lately.
It’s a part of a concerted effort to get church-goers on board with environmental volunteerism and
advocacy. American Muslims have been taking a hard look at the environment, too. Some
Islamic leaders hope Muslims will get fired up to fight global warming, deforestation, and other
environmental problems. Shawn Allee reports:
A few boys have some books sprawled on the floor of a book store. They’re practically devouring
some illustrated stories:
(Azam:) “All these three are my boys.”
(Allee:) “Looks like they’re pretty busy with their own books here.”
(Azam:) “Yeah, they like reading, I’m proud of them.”
Ali Azam says his boys aren’t the only ones reading up on Islam – it’s a family affair.
(Allee:) “Let’s see what books you have here.”
(Azam:) “To Be a European Muslim.”
Azam says, To Be a European Muslim reads like a manual for everyday life:
“You can be a good Muslim, and you can be a good citizen of the Western world.”
The IQRA Muslim book store in Chicago is owned by Abidullah Ghazi. Ghazi says Islam deals
with a person’s whole life. He says the holiest book, the Koran, has something to say on
marriage, science, and the environment:
“There’s very clear guidelines in the tradition of the prophet. When you plant a tree, and animals
and insects eat from it, for each eating, you get a reward.”
But Muslims I spoke with say the environment is not a hot topic in American mosques. And even
in this Muslim book store, it gets little explicit attention:
“Because, as I say, in traditional society itself, that’s not a major issue.”
Ghazi says when Muslims arrived a few decades ago, the environment was not on their minds.
Their children needed guidance on fundamentals, like how to pray. But today, Muslims face new
moral challenges, including the environment:
“So, the time’s ripe to discuss this issue.”
Ingrid Mattson is President of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA. ISNA is one of the nation’s
largest Muslim umbrella groups:
“What I would like to see is that we’re able to develop more guidelines with participation of the
community that would help them move forward to make them more environmentally friendly.”
Mattson wants American Muslims to fight global warming. She says it should be easy to motivate
them. After all, many have family abroad who face environmental problems:
“Most of us have at least visited Middle Eastern countries or African countries and we’ve seen for
ourselves the impact of global warming. We know, for example, that the situation in Darfur really
was started because of the drying up watering holes of nomads.”
The U.N. agrees water is at least one cause behind the conflict in Sudan. It could take time for
big-picture principles to move from Mattson’s group into American mosques. But some Muslim
environmental activists are on the move now.
Zainab Khan works with a Chicago inter-faith group called Faith in Place. She’s looking at things
Muslims can do in their day-to-day lives. One of Khan’s goals is to have mosques cut back the
environmental impact of Islamic rituals:
“We pray five times a day. Most people need to wash up before they pray, and usually they’ll be using
warm water for that.”
And heating water takes power. So, Khan is trying to get a local mosque to install solar water
heaters. She also wants Muslims to buy food from local farmers. She says getting organic food
isn’t enough. It can be imported from places like Peru:
“So, for example, if you’re getting organic all the way from Peru, it’s harder to monitor whether pesticides aren’t
being used, plus on top of that, you’re burning a lot of fossil fuels to get that organic food to you.”
Khan says buying local helps ensure workers and animals are treated well – both Islamic
principles. Khan says sometimes it’s hard to speak about Islam without getting hung up on
current discussions on gender and terrorism, but she tries anyway:
“God will send forth upon communities blessings upon blessings. It’s this positive outlook that if you make a
concerted effort and then God will take care of you and take care of the Earth.”
Increasingly, Islam is making America its home. Khan and other Muslims believe they can
contribute to making that home’s environment better through faith.
For the Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.