Religious Environmentalism: Yet Another Instance of Pigeonholing

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 18 August 2023 "People trying to save Amazon rain forests may be believers as well as non-believers. Activists and environmental crusaders having NO faith in god and religion are also equally active like those who're devout believers and do this as a service to god and religion. But knowingly or unknowingly, everyone involved in it wants to save humanity. That's the foremost aim of all. Religion doesn't and mustn't make a huge difference in this particular context...." Richard Dawkins, 2020 Though the writer has noble intentions, enshrinement of all lofty virtues for the good of humanity and calling it Religious Environmentalism sounds like our megalomaniac PM's Jumle Baazi (rhetoric/witticism). Agreed, Dr Javed Akhatar hasn't coined this discipline and it's not so new, but the point is, why yet another pigeonholing is required, that too with a religious tag? This sounds like Jaggi's ' Inner Engineering.' The great French linguist and the Father of Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida aptly said that we're more into naming and phrasing and less into working and implementing. There's also no denying the fact that Islam offers a useful perspective of environmentalism through two primary themes. The first is the "glory and logic of the cosmos and of the cyclical regeneration of life" that is visible through Qur'anic passages, particularly ones referencing stewardship (Khalifa). The second theme is the very environmental basis from which Islam was founded, an environment where natural resources, especially water, fruit trees, and livestock have always had to be carefully conserved to ensure human survival, a concern which is inevitably reflected in the Qur'an. Hinduism and other faiths also put an emphasis on the conservation and upkeep of the environment for the symbiotic co-existence of nature and human civilization. It must be noted that the term Religious Environmentalism was actually rejected by Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman because of its specific nomenclature (religion). They suggested Anthropic or Anthropogenic Environmentalism which's nonspecific as well as non-religious. So many atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Daniel Dennett, yours truly are associated with this movement to save the environment and the earth. It's a universal concern, not a religious one. Don't limit its scope and ambit. ---- A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/religious-environmentalism-pigeonholing/d/130470 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism