As a human being, your relationship to the
environment is not based on your immediate want and needs but is shaped by your
consciousness of the needs of future generations. This is well illustrated in
the saying of the Prophet, ‘If the Hour is imminent and anyone of you has a
palm shoot in his hand and is able to plant it before the Hour strikes, then he
should do so and he will be rewarded for that action’.
This hadith shows that
in Islam improving the quality of this life for others beings several rewards
both to the doer of good and those who benefit from his action. It also shows
that it is never too late in your life to do good, and
that there is a close connection between this world and the Hereafter.
Each individual, each community and each society
for the sake of self-interest and survival needs to be concerned with the
global fate of mankind and the environment on which man and other creature of God
have their being. But there is above all the satisfaction, pleasure and reward
of fulfilling his amaanah or trust that must impel
man to have a more active concern for the human condition and the integrity of
creation.
What
is needed
As we have seen, Islam provides the values for
creating a better world. You need to be aware of these values and know how to
apply them to your own life, to the lives of those around you and to your
environment. When the Qur’an says, for example, ‘Eat
and drink but do not waste for God does not love those who waste’. You need to
work out how much resources (if any) you waste and how
to put these resources to better use by sharing with others.
You need to be aware of developments on a global
level. For the reasons we have mentioned about the increasing
inter-connectedness of the world, you need to think globally. No man is an
island unto himself and no community can afford to live in a ghetto.
Develop strategies for dealing with specific problems.
Tackle problems according to a scale of priorities. Start with situations that
are closest to you: while you think globally, start by acting locally. For
example, in regard to cleanliness and hygiene, look after your own person, and
try to ensure that you home, and your neighborhood are
also clean. Organize campaigns to reduce pollution and see that waste is
properly disposed of. In regard to education, take steps to ensure that people
in your household are literate and then people in your own local community and
then wider afield, if you have the talents and can organize
the resources to do so.
Organize with others; acquire the administrative
skills to spread information, to conduct campaigns, to consult and interact
with people, to manage finance and resources, to mobilize and transport
resources, food, clothing, medicine and equipment where they are needed.
Be prepared to engage in organized effort and
struggle to ensure that not only the symptoms of problems are tackled but that
their root causes are eliminated. It may not be enough to organize continuous food
supplies to a starving people when that starvation is deliberately brought on
by an oppressive government to bring about a people’s submission. The struggle
should aim therefore at dealing with the oppressive government (and in some
cases with their external supporters), using first of all persuasion to bring
about a change to a more humane policy or in the final resort adopting measures,
preferably peaceful, to change the government. The sanction of force is not t
be ruled out but if at all used, it must be applied according to fixed
principles. All this is in keeping with the Qur’anic
injunction to enjoin the good and forbid the evil. It has been well said that
all that is needed for evil to triumph is that good men should do nothing.
In the attempt to help people and bring about
changes in habits and life-styles, it is best initially to spend time and
effort trying to educate people and create understanding rather than to scold
and condemn. There are golden rules in the method of the Prophet which need to
be applied in dealing with people as for instance the command to ‘Make things
easy and not difficult for people’, and his reminder that ‘He who is not
merciful will have no mercy shown to him’.
Finally, it is important to remember that while
Islam may have the solution to the range of problems and crises facing mankind,
it is not content merely with tinkering at unjust and oppressive systems. It is
concerned to reorient man is a direction that is in keeping with his innate
values and needs, and equip him to discharge his God-given amaanah
or trust on this earth. When this happens, it is the exploiters, the
squanderers, the arrogant and the unjust who will need
to worry. (top)