Unit 3 Paper

Deep Ecology and Islam?!

Hisham El Sherbini

AMSR7

Team 2

December 2016
Table of Contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1

2. What is Deep Ecology? .................................................................................................................. 1

3. Islam and Thinking ........................................................................................................................ 2

4. Islam and Deep Ecology ................................................................................................................ 4

5. If thats the case then where is the Misconception coming from? ............................................... 5

6. Conclusion & Reflection ................................................................................................................ 6

7. Action ............................................................................................................................................ 6

8. References .................................................................................................................................... 7

9. Appendix ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Hisham El Sherbini Unit 3 Paper

1. INTRODUCTION

It always puzzled when it is claimed that science and religion are opposites; that notion that
a man of science cannot, possibly, believe in God or in a religion and vice versa. It also
puzzled me the notion that creation could be the opposite opinion or view of evolution.

My experience of Islamic teachings encouraged my interest in science as a means of

understanding the world around and inside us, and encouraged the exploration of the
theory of creation in addition to a theory of evolution.

And I do not think it was just me who is misled to think so. I mean, after all, the very first
word of the Quran (the Holy Book of Islam) that was revealed to Prophet Muhammed
(Peace Be Upon Him) was as instruction to Read. Not just that, but the rest of the first
verses immediately introduced the science/technology of creation of man and
emphasized the education of man: Read in the name of your Lord, who created, created
man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is most bountiful. (He who taught) the use of the pen
taught man which he knew not.' (Sura al-'alaq (96:1-3) cited in Mission Islam, 2016).

What provoked me even more and led me to write this paper is the claim, I thought I heard
during Workshop 3 at Schumacher, that religion and Deep Thinking do not go together and
that we need to free ourselves from religion in order to be able to think deeply, question
deeply and experience deeply.

In this paper, I wanted to inquire whether I was misled to understand that Islam actually
encourages Deep Thinking and, if I was not misled, then why could that be a common
claim. I also wanted to inquire whether some Muslims do not get that same picture and, if
so, what led them to that.

2. WHAT IS DEEP ECOLOGY?

The term Deep Ecology was coined by Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, in 1973. He
introduced it to environmental literature in an attempt to address ethical questions about
how we should live. He realised that ecological science, which is concerned with facts and
logic alone, is not enough and that we need ecological wisdom by concentrating on deep
experience, deep questioning and deep commitment (Harding, 2016 & Drengson, 2012).

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Deep experience is often what gets us started along a deep ecological journey. It is generally
spontaneous, it is not looked for or expected. It exposes a new sense of belonging to an
intelligent interconnected universe with objects being nodes in a vast mesh of relationships
(Harding, 2016).

Deep experience often leads to deep questioning of our purposes and values, right down to
fundamental root causes and, more importantly, translating these into decisions, lifestyle
and action (Harding, 2016 & Drengson, 2012).

Combining deep experience with deep questioning brings up deep commitment to

fundamental change through peaceful and democratic actions leading towards ecological
sustainability, extending care to humans and deepening care for non-humans (Harding,
2016)

It is worth highlighting the presence of the term Shallow Ecology which, Drengson (2012)
argues, Naess might not have seen it as necessarily incompatible with the former one. Some
definitions indeed follow that idea such as when Drengson (2012) & Harding (2016) describe
Shallow Ecology as a short-term approach that attempts to green business and industry by
promoting technological fixes but that also ensures the continuance of business as usual.
But perhaps by portraying it as an anthropocentric environmental ethics that presupposes
that only man has value in itself, Lavik (2010) argues its contrast with Deep Ecology being a
non-anthropocentric environmental ethics that presupposes that nature has value in itself.

3. ISLAM AND THINKING

Thinking in Islam is not only encouraged and portraited as a form of worship but is
considered vital for recognizing Allah through His creations. In the Quran, the Arabic word
much used to refer to Deep Thinking and Deep Questioning is Tafakkor and its generally
accepted equivalents appear in the Quran over 150 times. Table 1 below illustrates just a
sample of that:

Table 1 Sample of Aayaat (Verses) of Thinking

English Arabic Number of Verses

Dont they see? alam-ya-ra? 64

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Hisham El Sherbini Unit 3 Paper

To see yan-zo-roon 25

To use their minds yaa-qe-loon 22

To know yaf-qa-hoon 13

To really see yub-se-roon 13

To think ya-ta-fakka-roon 11

Those who have minds ulol-albab 9

To question ya-ta-sa-aloon 8

Those of intelligence ulen-noha 2

Those who have vision ulel-absar 2

(Saleh, 2012)

The scope of questioning and study is as big as the universe itself with all the known and
unknown creations including, but not limited to, stars, earth, water, air, plants, animals,
birds and human beings. Evidence from the Quran includes: Say, Observe what is in the
heavens and earth (Sura Yunus (10:100) cited in Quran.com, 2016a) and Indeed, in the
creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs
for those of understanding (Sura Ali Imran (3:190) cited in Quran.com, 2016b). More about
the intrinsic value of the creations of Allah including man, clouds, camels, cattle, water, wind
and the universe can be found in the Appendix.

Interestingly and contrary to common belief, Islam did not suggest any specific method,
tool, or approach in terms of how to explore, study, and question. Islam only guides the
mind in three areas: 1) beliefs, 2) principles of character (akhlaq) at the general and specific
levels, and 3) Sharia (Islam's legal system). Other than that, the mind is free to work aiming
at righteousness (Saleh, 2012).

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4. ISLAM AND DEEP ECOLOGY

In Islam, the interaction with nature echoes the definition of Deep Ecology above in that all
objects or creations have intrinsic value rather than Shallow Ecology with its view of only
Man having value and can consume and exploit surrounding elements freely. In Islam, this
interaction is clearly controlled and directed by such foundational religio-ethical precepts as
mercy, kindness and compassion as well as balance, moderation, equilibrium and harmony.
In addition, it involves gratitude, thankfulness and appreciation. These principles and the
operative ones derivable from them, when systematically understood and implemented
through the jurisprudence of the environment, result in ecological health of the socio-
natural environment (Setia, 2007, p.117).

A lot of evidence exists. For example, Man is asked to have an attitude of spiritual humility
in the form of walking lightly on earth as revealed in Sura Al-Furqan (25:63) cited in
Quran.com, 2016c): The faithful servants of the Beneficent are they who tread upon the
earth gently. As Setia (2007, p.120) puts it: reflective, thinking Muslims today can critically
appropriate the secular, quasi-paganistic Gaian (Lovelock & Lovelock, 2000) notion of
reducing ones ecological footprint (Rees, 1992) and re-ground it into an authentic Islamic
eco-spiritual ethos of the environment.

Another example is the mercy towards animals when Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) has
forbidden the beating of animals on the face, and prohibited the thawing of stones at
animals. He recommended that every care should be taken when slaughtering animals
(Heesen, 2015). Following him, Caliph Omar, one of the most distinguished of the Prophet's
companions, was known, on one occasion, that he passed his hand over the wound of a
camel intending to help heal the beast, saying, "I fear God may seek retributions from me
for the pain you suffer" (Foltz, 2014).

Deep reflection and contemplation are cornerstones to Islamic belief and they are the ones
that lead to a pro-active and intrinsic attitude towards nature; an attitude that is an
essential, inseparable aspect of Islamic axiology or value system (Setia, 2007, p.147).

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5. IF THATS THE CASE THEN WHERE IS THE MISCONCEPTION COMING FROM?

To answer that question, I reached out to fellow Muslims interviewing them and asking
them about their view in terms of the main inquiry above. The sample was small but it was
meant to be just suggestive of the possible reasons behind that misconception.

My questions, in the following order, were:

1) Do you believe that Deep Thinking, Deep Questioning, and Deep Commitment
towards Action are some of the main principles of Islam?
2) If so, do you believe that all or at least the majority of Muslims are aware and are
practicing that?
3) If not (following a Root Cause Analysis technique such as the 5 Whys (Jones &
Womack, 1996)), I asked Why is that do you think? And with every answer, I asked
the Why question again, and again.

There was an agreement between all interviewees that, indeed, Deep Ecology with its
elements of Deep Experiencing, Deep Questioning and Deep Commitment resonates very
much with the principles of Islam and that it is not just encouraged but it is considered a
form of worship that gets us closer to the Creator.

They also unanimously agreed that they believe that the majority of Muslims are either not
aware or do not understand Deep Ecology in Islam or unaware of how to practice it.

When I asked Why is that the case, they all attributed it to the lack of comprehensive Islamic
Education whether through mainstream channels such as Schools or Media or through
Parenting, Extended Family or Society.

When I asked the question Why again, they suggested two main reasons. The first being a
political one and the second being an economical one. As for the political one, they agreed
that, over the last century or more, the leaders of the Islamic countries have been blinded
by money and power and they saw that the only way to maintain that is to control
Education and to restrict comprehensive Islamic Education especially in terms of those deep
and core principles under consideration in this paper. Those leaders, allegedly, got
threatened by message of Islam, being a comprehensive way of life that champions social
justice, equality, fairness and balance between all creatures, that it could shake their
thrones. At the same time, and for similar reasons like those that cause a conflict between

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grassroots movements and establishments, the interviewees expressed their view of the
conflict between Islam and Western principles and values which also, in their eyes, puts
pressure by Western politics and mainstream media to limit the unveiling of the deep
principles of Islam.

The second reason, being economical, interestingly and unexpectedly, was suggested to be
because of Capitalism and how families, including both parents, are struggling to make ends
meet. They are continuously stressed and under pressure to make a living that they have
little, if any, time or energy left to educate their children about the deep principles of Islam
especially in the face of another element of Capitalism which is the absurd advertising of
materialistic objects and possessions that is meant to sway children, from a young age, from
what really matters.

6. CONCLUSION & REFLECTION

There is a lot of evidence, some of it we tried to illustrate in this paper, that demonstrate the
inclusion of the principles of Deep Ecology within Islam.

Once again, I seemed to have got more than what I bargained for. Even though I covered Capitalism
in my first 2 papers, I was not looking for it here. Interestingly, it was brought up again by the
interviewees as a core reason, besides the political one, for the state of affairs.

7. ACTION

As a result of all the above and understanding that the main issue here is the lack of
comprehensive Islamic Education targeting Muslims and also the lack of comprehensive
Islamic awareness towards non-Muslims, I can now realize that the action I need to take or,
rather, my duty, is to counteract the bigotry, xenophobia and Islamophobia of mainstream
media and politics and to spread the awareness at a pace and scale that needs to be much
bigger than the efforts of the dark side.

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8. REFERENCES

Drengson, A. (2012). Some Thought on the Deep Ecology Movement. Retrieved 03 January,
2017 from http://www.deepecology.org/deepecology.htm
Foltz, R. (2014). Animals in Islamic traditions and Muslim cultures. Oneworld Publications.
Harding, S. (2016). What is Deep Ecology? Retrieved 20 December, 2016 from
https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/learning-resources/what-is-deep-ecology
Heesen, C. (2015). Islam and Deep Ecology and the idea of sacredness. Retrieved 03
January, 2017 from http://wordpress.conncoll.edu/rel198heesen/2015/11/15/islam-and-
deep-ecology-and-the-idea-of-sacredness/

Jones, D. and Womack, J. (1996) Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your

Corporation, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lavik, T. (2010). Deep ecology and liberalism. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from
https://www.wildproject.org/journal/8-lavik
Lovelock, J. & Lovelock, J. E. (2000). Gaia: A new look at life on earth. Oxford Paperbacks.
Mission Islam. (2016). Beginning of Revelation. Retrieved 16 December, 2016 from
https://www.missionislam.com/quran/beginrevelation.htm
Quran.com. (2016a). Sura Yunus. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from https://quran.com/10
Quran.com. (2016b). Sura Ali Imran. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from https://quran.com/3
Quran.com. (2016c). Sura Al Furqan. Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from https://quran.com/25
Rees, W. E. (1992). Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban
economics leaves out. Environment and urbanization, 4(2), 121-130.
Saleh, M. (2012). The Obligation of Thinking in Islam: Relevance to the Q-cip Model.
Retrieved 03 January, 2017 from
http://muslimeducators.com/integration%20articles/Integration%20Article%204.pdf
Setia, A. (2007). The Inner Dimension of going Green: articulating an Islamic deep-
ecology. Islam & Science, 5(2), 117-151.

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9. APPENDIX

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