Maruf Zaid Deen
Our beautiful Earth has all the things we need to live but we need to ensure that we take good care of our environment so that it can keep giving us what we need. Caring for the environment means doing things that will keep the Earth healthy, like recycling our plastic bottles instead of throwing them in the general waste bin, and turning off the lights when we don’t need them on.
It’s up to us to do what we can to care for the environment. There are plenty of ways to be green and make choices that help our planet. It’s important to conserve the Earth’s natural resources, like water, so people living decades after us can still enjoy everything we get to have now and so that the eco-system stays intact.
Nature provides us all with so many wonderful and useful things. From beautiful sights, to food & shelter, to maintaining the delicate balance necessary to sustain life on this planet. This is an Amanah (trust) that God has temporarily given us to take care of.
Making choices like those is part of being green and our Deen strongly encourages us to look after the environment. There are many positive things we can do to help our planet and care for the environment and some of these include:
1. Using less energy by turning off lights and unplugging things, and by using low-energy light bulbs
2. By using biodegradable products – these are things that will break up into lots of little pieces over a few years, and become part of the Earth again.
3. Throwing away different kinds of rubbish properly to help with recycling. For instance, choosing the correct bin when discarding cardboard which you don’t need anymore so that it can be taken to a recycling centre in order it to be made into new cardboard boxes.
4. Think about how much water you’re using, and turning off the tap when you’re done.
5. Carrying around a reusable bottle to drink water and juice from instead of buying new plastic bottles.
6. Reusing shopping bags instead of getting new ones when you buy things when out shopping.
7. Ensuring you use both sides of a piece of paper before throwing it away and when you do throw it away, recycling it in the right bin.
The importance of caring for the environment is absolutely paramount for many reasons. Perhaps most importantly, we need to make sure that we leave this place better than when we came for the next generations who will also have a responsibility to look after the planet. It wouldn’t be fair to hand them something we fouled up and make them responsible for cleaning up.
Allah says in the Qur’an that He is the Creator of the world. Human beings are on the world as trustees or ‘vicegerents’ – they are told to look after the world for Allah and for the future.
Muslims have to look after the Earth because it is all Allah’s creation and it is part of a human’s duty to Allah:.
Allah is He Who raised up the heavens without any pillars that you can see. Then He settled Himself on the Throne, and constrained the sun and the moon to serve you; each planet pursues its course during an appointed term. He regulates it all and expounds the Signs, that you may have firm belief in the meeting with your Lord. He it is Who spread out the earth and made therein firmly fixed mountains and rivers, and of fruits of every kind He has made pairs. He causes the night to cover the day. In all this, verily, are signs doer a people who reflect. (Surah 13:3-4)
We must see ourselves responsible for the world which Allah created and we have to make our own decisions about how to do this.
Prophet Muhammad also encouraged environmentalism. He said said, “No Muslim plants a tree or sows seeds and then a bird, or a human, or an animal eats from it but that it is charity for him.” (Bukhari)
For all these reasons we all collectively have a responsibility towards the world and the environment, all of which are the creations of Allah. I sincerely pray that we are able to take care of our environment and that there is peace, justice and harmony in our world.
Thank you for reading my article. I hope you have found this article insightful and beneficial. I sincerely believe that if I am able to even benefit one person from my writing then Alhamdulillah I have done my job.
Wassalamu’alaykum – Peace be with you all.
Your brother, Maruf Zaid Deen
