How islam looks to the natural resources

In Bangladesh, it is estimated that by one in seven will be displaced by climate change, creating millions of climate refugees. In the Middle East, large areas are likely to become uninhabitable due to heatwaves likely to sweep over the region in the next few decades.

However, despite their vulnerability, many Muslim countries are contributing to the problem. Bangladesh and Pakistan are the two most polluted countries in the world, but have taken no serious measures to address pollution. Inaction in the Muslim world persists despite a declaration by Muslim countries in to play an active role in combatting climate change.

You would think that those most affected by climate change would be the most eager to stop it. This is not always the case. Many Muslim countries are reluctant to impose Western concepts of environmentalism, or to bow to pressure from countries which have already gone through industrialisation without having to address pollution or curb emissions.

Environmental colonialism is not the answer. Translated by May Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley. Northampton, MA: Interlink, Mystical, fantasy, and reality story of a solitary Bedouin and his wild sheep moufflon as they try to live cut apart from humanity in the mountainous desert of southern Libya.

Munif, Abd al-Rahman. Translated by Roger Allen. London: Quartet Books, Saudi novel that places drought as the driving force of action, demonstrating the impact of an enduring drought on village life. Faced with the realities of climate change and limited resources, the question of sustainable development has come to the forefront of politics and economics in many Muslim-majority countries.

One of the first works to bring together Muslim economists to propose an Islamic, noninterest-based framework for economic and financial management was Iqbal This theoretical work was followed by Orhan Astrom , which argued that sustainable development could only be achieved if the paradigm itself is revised to focus on public outcomes, rather than individual choices. Ibrahim, et al. The researchers also place pollution control as a top priority in any development plan.

Hamim, et al. Specific case studies of sustainable development include Schoenfeld , which brought together Palestinian and Israeli scholars to develop a meta-narrative of sustainable development based on environmentally friendly policies and regional cooperation, although political conflict continues to stymie these efforts.

Adaman and Arsel identifies the main players in Turkish environmentalism through a series of case studies of projects ranging from energy and water use and sources to sustainable tourism and agriculture. Attention is also given to the Southeast Anatolia Development Project, which is additionally covered in Harris Adaman, Fikret, and Murat Arsel, eds. Environmentalism in Turkey: Between Democracy and Development?

Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, Edited collection identifying the main players in Turkish environmentalism—state, civil society, nonstate actors, businesses, the European Union, and transnational advocacy networks. Analyzes a series of case studies, including energy politics, the Southeast Anatolia Development Project, water use, transformations in urban structures and the environment, biodiversity and biotechnology in agriculture, and sustainable tourism.

Budiman, Mochammad Arif. Edited by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, — Bangi, Malaysia: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Examines efforts in Indonesia and Turkey, among other places, to use geothermal heat as a green energy source. Edited by Jack Appleton, — Harris, Leila. Analyzes contemporary development efforts in southeastern Turkey through the lenses of post-developmental, feminist geographic, and postcolonial scholarship, concluding that state efforts to unify and nationalize Turkish territory have resulted in hydrosocial identity construction among Kurds.

Ibrahim, Patmawati, Siti A. Basir, and Asmak A. Asserts human welfare as the basis for development in the Islamic economic system. Defines sustainable development as maintaining a long-run rate of economic growth while achieving intergenerational equity in natural resource use and restricting increases in pollution. The ultimate goal is to assure that present needs are met in a way that does not compromise future access to resources.

Examines sustainability from the perspectives of the environment, the economy, and sociopolitical concerns. Iqbal, Munawar, ed. Islamic Perspectives on Sustainable Development. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, Proposes a noninterest-based economic and financial framework for development that engages stewardship as a mechanism for ecological balance, social justice, and economic restructuring at the levels of economic exchange, production, and consumption, including through public ownership of resources, pursuit of social rather than individual interests, avoidance of excessive consumption, waste and pollution, and promotion of simplicity of lifestyles.

Islam and Sustainable Development. The author brings extensive experience from working in civil society and with international organizations and donors to address issues connected to sustainability and governance in the Middle East.

Orhan Astrom, Z. Notes the challenge of achieving sustainable development when the paradigm itself is contested. Explains some of the underlying principles of Islamic economics, which assumes sufficient resources to meet needs, so that assuring justice and public welfare and avoiding waste are the ultimate objectives, rather than profits or absolute ownership. Takes an intentionally normative and altruistic approach, rather than claiming to be value-free science. Focus is on coherent social, political, economic, and environmental outcomes rather than individual decision-making.

Schoenfeld, Stuart, ed. Toronto: York University, Conference proceedings designed to develop a meta-narrative of sustainable development to address recycling; air and water quality; waste management; and conservation and resource management, including of water, through regional cooperation on environmental issues.

Notes the challenge of differences in social and political constructions of environmental narratives, making resolution of political conflict essential to the environmental well-being of the region. Throughout history, access to water for both humans and nonhumans and determination of individual versus community rights to water has been central to social and political organization.

As the global population faces increasing risk of water shortages in the future, attention to water rights and management has become particularly critical in the Muslim world. Faruqi argues for use of the economic and religious principles of equity and public interest in water management. Faruqi, Naser I. Examines the challenge of water management in a region with scarce natural supplies and one of the highest average population growths in the world.

Uses an Islamic lens to argue for the insertion of principles of equity and public interest into the market to assure fairness.

Siraj, M. Edited by K. Raju and S. Manasi, 15— Cham, Switzerland: Springer International, Details law and policy implications in light of climate change and water shortages. Calls for justice and equity in water use and economization of water usage. Scarcity of water resources, management of the destructive and constructive capacities of water, and sharing of water resources across regions and countries have long been central to the history of the Islamic world.

Some of the earliest studies of water management include Beaumont on irrigation systems in premodern Iran and Waterbury , a study of the Nile and its cycles of drought and flooding as a shared resource between Egypt and the Sudan. Questions related to water management and its underlying principles resurged at the beginning of the 20th century. Discussions of Islamic principles of water management, inter-sectoral water markets, and shared waters can be found in Faruqi, et al.

Collins is a complete history of the Nile over four thousand years of human interaction. Other historical studies of water management and conflict include Borsch , which discusses irrigation problems in relationship to the Black Death; Mikhail on irrigation in Fayyum, Egypt, and its importance in connecting this rural area with Ottoman centers of power in Cairo and Istanbul; and Christensen on the impact of irrigation qanat systems on agricultural production and economic development in Iran.

From a more contemporary perspective, Tal and Rabbo engages water management challenges in Israel and Palestine, bringing together experts on water resources and population needs from both sides to formulate jointly proposed solutions that would work for both sides if political dynamics allowed it.

Control over water resources for political power and influence by Saudi Arabia is discussed in Jones Barnes, Jessica. Analysis of the ongoing making and remaking of water resources from the Nile for people inside and outside of Egypt. Explores the everyday politics of water as it is blocked, released, channeled, and diverted to and by farmers, government, engineers, and international donors.

Beaumont, Peter. Highlights both achievements and shortcomings of these programs. Discusses irrigation canal problems in relationship to the Black Death, examining the impact of disease and decimation of the population on large-scale irrigation works, maintenance, and repairs and the resulting damage to agricultural production. Christensen, Peter. New ed. London: I. Tauris, Challenges the predominant theory of decline in Iran and the Middle East as due to the rise of European capitalism by examining its environmental history.

Concludes that changes in the extent and character of irrigation had a negative impact on demographics and politics that set the stage for impoverishment, disease, and technological backwardness.

Collins, Robert O. The Nile. A historical account of the human societies that have grown along the four-thousand-mile-long river through deserts, grasslands, mountains, and rain forests, spanning nine African countries. Examines how human beings have benefitted from and been destroyed by its floods as well as human efforts to control its power, from the canals of the Pharaohs through the construction of the High Aswan Dam in Biswas, and Marad J.

Bino, eds. Water Management in Islam. Tokyo: United Nations University, Edited volume addressing principles of water rights, management, trade, markets, and conservation in Islam, followed by a series of case studies on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Iran as well as discussions of Islamic perspectives on inter-sectoral water markets and shared waters. Jones, Toby Craig. Uses Saudi government control over and management of these two critical natural resources and the science and technology used to harness them to examine power dynamics, particularly the forging of authoritarianism within the kingdom and in the global political arena.

Shows how exploitation of nature and related experts were used to consolidate political authority in the desert. Analysis of the history of irrigation in Fayyum, Egypt, during the first half of the 18th century. Based on Ottoman Turkish and Arabic archival materials. Uses the environment to connect Ottoman centers of power, such as Istanbul and Cairo, with rural regions such as Fayyum, noting an interplay of power between the center and the peasantry and that food production in Fayyum was critical to commodity movement throughout the Mediterranean and Red Sea areas.

Documentary on the archaeological excavation of two ancient Greco-Roman urban centers before they were inundated in the construction of the Birecik Dam in Turkey.

Sowa, Anna, and Remi Sowa, dirs. Aghbalou: The Source of Water. London: Chouette Films, Documentary on the unintended consequences of new technologies for accessing water supplies in the Todgha Valley of Morocco, one of the driest habitats on earth. Shows the impact of groundwater overextraction, population growth, and climate change as motorized water pumps intended to facilitate water access end up disrupting the balance of aquifers and raising the cost of water for poor farmers.

Concludes with suggested strategies for adapting to growing water scarcity, particularly among the rural poor. Tal, Alon, and Alfred Abed Rabbo, eds. Edited collection of works by both Israeli and Palestinian experts, offering perspectives on water resources and needs, past water agreements and their implementation, water culture, legislation, groundwater management, stream restoration, drinking water standards, sewage treatment, sustainable agricultural practices, desalination, use of the Jordan River basin, citizen involvement, the water crisis in Gaza, the need for conflict resolution, and cooperative water management strategies.

Provides balance to the opinions and perspectives of both sides, concluding with joint proposed solutions. Waterbury, John. Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley. One of the earliest case studies in resource management in Egypt and the Sudan that demonstrates the challenge of multiple states sharing a common resource upon which both depend for agriculture and energy.

Points to nation-states as a new regional reality implemented from the outside that resulted in conflicts over independence and sovereignty in the quest for development.

Conflicts over water use and control have occurred not only along the Nile but also in the Jordan River valley and the Euphrates-Tigris basin. Sosland examines the intertwined history of state building and water development not only in Israel and the Palestinian territories between and but also the impacts in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

The hydropolitical dynamics of the Euphrates-Tigris basin are examined in Bagis and Carkoglu and Eder , with attention to the impacts of dam construction and irrigation projects undertaken by Turkey on the quality and quantity of water supplies available to Iraq and Syria.

Carkoglu and Eder additionally highlight the entanglement of water disputes and ethnic conflict with Kurdish populations living on the border regions. Most recently, Ward examines the relationship between water scarcity and political instability in Yemen. Documentary coverage of water conflict is presented in Waters of Discord , which focuses on the Jordan River basin. Bagis, Ali Ihsan. Analysis of the Southeastern Anatolia Project and its three-stage plan with attention to concerns in Syria and Iraq about the shared water resource and potential impact.

While Syria and Iraq consider the situation to be a political issue, Turkey insists it is economic. Carkoglu, Ali, and Mine Eder.

Examines conflict between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq over a commonly shared resource, particularly with dam building and other water development and irrigation projects in the s and expanded in the s by Turkey that have limited the quality and quantity of water supplies entering Syria and Iraq.

Water supply issues have since become entangled with ethnic conflict with the Kurds in the border regions of Turkey and Syria, highlighting the interconnection of environmental and political concerns.

Waters of Discord. Documentary focusing on expected conflict zones over water resources in the future, including the Jordan River in the Middle East and the Southeastern Anatolia Project in Turkey.

Harris, Leila M. Analysis of the complex interrelations between water use and social conflicts in situations where a resource is common to multiple nation-states.

Gives attention to both local and intrastate scales and potential sites for conflict in debates about sustainable resource use.

Lowi, Miriam R. Examines water disputes in the Jordan River basin and its relationship to and impact on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Calls for political resolutions to resource disputes while highlighting the complexities of documenting water uses and negotiations. Demonstrates the interplay between political conflict and resource use, concluding that the extent of human suffering caused by political conflict extends far beyond military and political concerns to issues related to daily life.

Selby, Jan. Engages testimonies of local water engineers, administrators, citizens, and other eyewitnesses to examine the impact of the water crisis before and after the Oslo Accords on everyday people.

Calls for attention not only to issues related to state formation and economic development but also to how people have to adapt to water shortages in daily life. Sosland, Jefferye K. Traces the intertwined history of state building and water development in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority between and Calls for the promotion of water cooperation as a means of creating rules, building confidence, and reducing tensions among competing parties in an effort to set the stage for addressing broader political concerns.

Ward, Christopher. Analyzes the water crisis in Yemen from perspectives including agricultural use, rural and urban supplies, and sanitation at both the community and public sector levels. Looks at both social and economic impacts as well as institutional, environmental, and technical challenges.

Zeitoun, Mark. Brings to light the hidden dynamics of water conflict, including use and control of water as expressions of hard power, bargaining power, and ideational power. Land use and appropriation, whether for settlement, conservation, or agriculture, and the potential for overuse have been concerns in the Islamic world from the beginning.

Evolution of various landscapes throughout the Islamic world has been examined and assessed since colonial times. Classical scholarship tended to focus on geography and long time periods, typically millennia, in order to trace long-term evolution and development, largely through the use of physical data, such as weather events, natural disasters, and agricultural settlements.

Less attention was given to the relationship between human beings and the environment and how they shaped each other, even though human habitation always changes an environment. A historical example of deliberate land selection and the changes that accompanied human habitation can be found in the excerpt in al-Tabari , which describes the selection of the land that eventually came to be the great Abbasid capital of Baghdad.

More recent works have addressed the question of the human impact on terrain and climate change over the very long term and with special attention to major changes from the 19th century to the early 21st century, particularly questions related to deforestation. Adams covers six thousand years of interaction between natural and human forces in the Diyala plains of Iraq, noting changes in natural variables, settlements, and agricultural systems.

Thirgood argues for long-term human impact, particularly in the form of deforestation, around the Mediterranean since the classical period. Meiggs also engages the narrative of deforestation, using the lens of ancient Greece and Rome to examine the purported demand for timber that had been blamed for deforestation of conquered territories for imperial purposes.

However, Meiggs concludes that such accounts have been greatly exaggerated, a conclusion shared in Davis and Davis , which argue that narratives of deforestation were driven by the political and economic agendas of colonial regimes, rather than being based on scientific knowledge or investigation. Wagstaff focuses on the interplay between human lifestyles and the environment, rather than past assumptions of a unidirectional impact of people on the environment.

McNeill argues for a more symbiotic relationship between human beings and the environment through the 18th century, but highlights the heavy human impact of the 19th and 20th centuries in creating barren and depleted countrysides.

McNeill argues that economic change drove these changes in the forms of deforestation, the collapse of terrace farming, shrinking animal populations, and topsoil erosion. Alatout carries the power dynamic of environmental narratives forward into the 21st century, highlighting the connection between narratives about territory and populations as well as power dynamics that typically ignore environmental dimensions. Cordova calls for a more interdisciplinary approach to analysis of landscape use and abuse that acknowledges physical realities as well as populations, using Jordan as a case study.

Patunru and Haryoko brings attention to the rapidly shrinking rainforest in Indonesia, calling for strengthening of ecotourism services as the most effective means of engaging sustainable forest management by providing real alternatives for local income opportunities to offset illegal logging and poaching and by giving local communities a strong stake in forest management. Adams, Robert McCormick. Based on archaeological work undertaken in Iraq from to Identifies converging natural and human forces over six thousand years from BCE through the 19th century CE.

Examines the natural variables in the region, as well as changes in settlements and agricultural systems. Alatout, Samer. Investigation of contemporary Palestinian and Israeli environmental narratives as narratives of power, rooted in property rights and the question of sovereignty.

Notes tendency to focus on either territory or population to the detriment of environmental concerns. Bach, Joel, and David Gelber, dirs. Traces human impacts on climate change. In-depth coverage of palm oil plantations and deforestation in Indonesia. New York: Journeyman Pictures, Examination of the global demand for palm oil as a fuel source and its devastating impact on the developing world.

Case study of Indonesia and the destruction of rainforests in favor of palm oil plantations. Traces the Indonesia Mega Rice Project that was intended to replace millions of acres of peat swamp forest with rice cultivation, but caused one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet when fires began to sweep the area, rendering Indonesia the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.

Cordova, Carlos. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, Examines the impact of changing climate, vegetation, and hunting opportunities on population and agriculture from prehistory through the earlyst-century Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Notes a rising tendency among scholars to question the received wisdom of colonial environmental narratives due to the political and economic agendas that tended to drive them, as well as their impact in dispossessing native peoples from their lands and traditional livelihoods.

Challenges the conventional narrative that Arab nomads engaged in deforestation and overgrazing, noting that contemporary paleoecological evidence does not show significant deforestation over the past two thousand years.

A comparative environmental history of North Africa that examines the influence of French scientists and colonial administrators in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and their impact in resurrecting and promoting romanticized visions of the Roman past greening of the desert and leading to profound changes in the landscape.

Argues that changes brought about in the 19th and 20th centuries created the barren and depopulated countrysides of the 21st century. The life of the mountains and its villages reflects human history, particularly as driven by economic changes, so that changes in human patterns are also reflected in environmental changes, including deforestation, the collapse of terrace farming, topsoil erosion, and diminishing animal populations.

Meiggs, Russell. Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford: Clarendon, Deals largely with ancient Rome and Greece, examining their need for and use of timber for military, transportation, and architectural purposes, concluding that the role played by these empires in deforestation of the ancient world is exaggerated. Mentions Turkey, Iberia, and North Africa. Patunru, Arianto A. Argues that the best hope for sustainable forest management is through ecotourism services that support conservation efforts by providing local income opportunities to reduce illegal logging and poaching.

Also calls for localized land rights and management of forest resources for local benefit, rather than government management of forests for national revenues. Edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, — Excerpt from History of Messengers and Kings.

He is proactively engaged in creating mass awareness on renewable energy, waste management and environmental sustainability in different parts of the world. Salman Zafar can be reached at salman ecomena.

Bookmark the permalink. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.

Do not sell my personal information. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website.

These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Necessary Necessary. Humans should treat the world with respect, as it is not ours to abuse. Guardianship allows humans to make use of the environment for their survival, but this must never be taken to the level of exploitation.

One of the central pillars of Islam is Tawhid.