Background Articles:

ARTICLE 1: Sustainable Development and Environmental Collapse, An Islamic Perspective

Fazlun Khalid

World Summit on Sustainable Development Parallel Event,
Muslim Convention on Sustainable Development

National Awqaf Foundation of South Africa, 1 September 2002

In a Soup

The fact that about fifty thousand people ranging from national leaders to grass roots activists from every corner of the world are now in Johannesburg to participate in this Summit, must mean that issues relating to Sustainable Development are now being taken seriously by people in all levels of society. Global Environment Outlook 3 (GEO 3), the report published by UNEP to coincide with the summit makes for some sober reading. The introductory paragraph to its Synthesis Report gives one an idea of the convoluted nature of the problem no matter how hard the writers try to be even handed; the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm was a watershed in modern environmentalism; great strides have been made since then in placing environment on the agenda at local, national and international levels; there have been a proliferation of policy documents, new legislative regimes and institutions and an “unspoken acknowledgement that the environment is too complex for humanity to address adequately in every sense” (writer’s emphasis).

Decisions made in Stockholm are now said to influence governance, business, economic activity, international environmental law, bilateral relations and also influence individual and society life style choices. But, there are problems. The environment is still at the periphery of socio economic development. Additionally, poverty and excessive consumption put enormous pressure on the environment and sustainable development remains largely theoretical for the majority of the world’s population of 600 million people. In a sentence, in spite of all the talking, report writing, the legislating and institution building very little progress has been made on the ground. “There has been immense change in both human and environmental conditions over the past thirty years” , for the worse, epitomised by the widening gap between rich and poor nations and the deteriorating state of the environment. This leads one to the obvious conclusion that if we do not begin to act with the required alacrity now we will be leaving succeeding generations in dire straits.

Alarmingly, there does not appear to be ministerial consensus even in developed countries like the UK who could be counted on to give the idea of Sustainable Development a push in the right direction. This is reflected in embarrassing public disagreements between ministers who form part of the British delegation to the Summit, one contending that this gathering is about development and the other conservation. A survey in the Economist observes that “Sustainable Development cuts to the heart of mankind’s relationship with nature” and warns of the contradiction inherent in pursuing economic growth, which is “the best way known to help the poor” and the havoc this could wreck on the planet if this is not handled with care. The survey further observes “ the sheer magnitude of economic growth that is hoped for in the coming decades makes it seem inevitable that clashes between mankind and nature will grow worse”. This is a soup with some unpalatable ingredients in it.

As people ask the big questions the solutions flood in thick and fast. What takes precedence, development or conservation? The answer depends on whether you are and economist or a conservationist. But Sustainable Development has managed to marry the two thanks to the magic word “sustainable” a la Brutland 1987 . But the debate continues. Has not the environmentalist hand been overplayed? Cannot market forces and technological fixes ease us out of this conundrum? Is nature so sacrosanct that we preserve it at the cost of human welfare? Should progress be sacrificed at the alter of nature? Are not the answers apparent in the way rich countries have dealt with the problem? Pollute as you progress and clean up the debris sometime in the future.

In spite of all the evidence that the carrying capacity of the planet is being severely tested there is fierce resistance to the idea of sustainability from the big business lobby. This is reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s when the tobacco industry lobbied and laboured to deny any links between smoking and lung cancer. Now they pay out millions in damages to those who have succumbed to the smoking habit and suffer its consequences. Big business is the force behind the US Government’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

One of the arguments behind the market forces palliative is emissions trading where companies and even countries can buy and sell tradable pollution credits. Another idea is for the state to levy pollution taxes. But, who puts a price on the environment, on nature? Some have dared to try. In an article in the Science journal a group of ecological economists “estimate that the overall cost benefit ratio of an effective programme for conservation of remaining wild nature is 100:1”. Nature’s services are valued at “around a rough average of $38 trillion”. So nature has now become a service industry. Those who wonder if technology could save the planet should also reflect on what technology has done to it in the past two hundreds years. We have become its addicts have we not? It has the quality of a drug where in spite of the systemic damage it has done to us and other living systems we crave for stiffer fixes of the same.

This Summit is essentially a manifestation of globalisation and it could be said in its mitigation that a global response is needed for a global problem essentially not of the making of the majority of the people represented in Johannesburg for this gathering. No mention is made in GEO 3 of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) who many consider the bete noir of Sustainable Development. It is an organisation based on the profit motive and in the main serves the interest of the Multi National Corporations (MNCs). Sustainable Development is not on its lists of priorities. Five MNCs control 50 percent of the global markets in aerospace, electronics, automobiles, airlines and steel; five control 70 percent in consumer durables; five control 40 percent in oil, personal computers and media. 51 percent of the largest economies today are MNCs, not countries. It is also interesting to note that the sales of 200 companies represent 28.3 percent of the world’s GDP and these companies employ only 0.75 percent of the world’s workforce. This should ring alarm bells for Sustainable Development as powerful forces are working against it. As the world is economics lead it is as well to be aware that one of the leading maxims of this discipline is the utilisation of scarce resources in the most efficient (meaning profitable) manner possible. Sustainable Development does not figure in this equation. However, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its latest report calls for more open markets and reminds industrial countries that their subsidies to production and exports cost the poor countries more in loss exports than the $56 billion they now receive in aid annually. Commitment to free trade by the rich countries is only superficial as domestic political concerns take precedence.

Democracy’s Appetite

Democracy is not a new phenomenon and neither is it a particular invention of the West. It has thrived in human society in many forms and what is propagated today is a political form that has adapted with modernity to serve the needs of modernity itself. Modernity destroys and devours traditional cultures and societies and has a voracious appetite for the finite resources of the natural world. Modernity with its indissoluble link to the state and the market leaves no individual free from the influence of the market. The market today is not of the local community any longer where participants have a commonality of purpose and interests. The modern economy, which is now global in extent devalues and destroys a whole range of human activities, human networks, solidarity, cooperation and reciprocity. What emerges from this is a selfish form of consumer individualism, which is destroying communal cohesion and solidarity. This individualism is illusory as it denies true choice, individuals having been ‘functionalised’ and transformed into ‘cogs and machines’. The global village is now a homogenised global culture defined largely in economic terms. It emerged through the progressive dilution and destruction of the old traditional cultures and the marginalization of the great religions by what has come to be known as the secular scientific order. Another writer observes that the driving force of modernity is its obsession with success; its aspiration to create a grand society is illusory and is totalitarian in outlook in that it sees all other societies as irrational. He describes modernity as the rape of traditional ancestral values and sees a titanic struggle between it and tradition. The technological society it espouses has dehumanising tendencies. Much of this is encapsulated in the plight of traditional communities in Africa and other parts of the world today.

Modernity ushered in the age of the nation states, deployed nationalism in the service of state authority and promoted national interests as the criteria of state policy. Democracy functions in the interests of the nation state, that is, for its people and not for people of other states. Perceived national interest comes first and this is why the US withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming. From this perspective it would seem natural that politicians vie with each other to offer voters higher and higher standards of living. The party that sells the best package rules a pacified electorate until the next round. There is however one major problem with this superficially agreeable set up. High standards of living come at the expense of a finite planet. As the 1972 Landsat satellite image shows the blue marble in space has limits. But this is not all. Nations compete with each other to stay on top of the per capita incomes league, the GDP league, et cetera, all measures of economic well being that grow inexorably and unsustainably every year. The UNDP report gives Norway the number one spot on its Human Development Index. But, as we say “well done” Norway and mean it, we have to ask in the same breath if this was done sustainably and also wonder if this not an invitation for the rest to follow suit. It would be interesting to make a comparison of the ecological footprints left behind by the first ten nations ranked in the list of 173 and the rest.

We have two UN agencies here talking not quite the same language although, ostensibly, they have an understanding about sustainability. This is a cause for concern and it is also a puzzling paradox that global agencies can propagate local democracy with such vigour. Who now speaks for the Inuit of North America as his soul, his culture, his way of being, his democracy is now destroyed? Who will speak for the now diminishing tribes of South America or the vanishing communities of Africa as globalisation sucks their souls into its vortex? It must have occurred to somebody that traditional communities did at one time live sustainably and in harmony with their surroundings before modernity intervened to change their lives.

In Chapter 5 of GEO 3 there are a few guarded passages that invite one to see through them. The affluent are asked to consider changes in consumption, meaning reducing consumption and changing life styles. Who in the developed democracies is going to listen to this? Cranks and conservationists may enthuse over this idea, but this strikes at the root of the raison d’etre of the modern nation state and democracy itself. Standards of living only go one way and that is up. This is why 90 percent of the world’s resources is consumed by 20 percent of the world’s affluent, all but a tiny minority of whom live in the developed world.

Prosperity is closely linked to the ability to address environmental concerns but it is also one of the forces behind excessive consumption, which is the cause of the other problems with far reaching impacts. But, there is more to this than meets the eye. Higher levels of education and mass communication have benefited the prosperous countries and there is both a greater awareness and appreciation of environmental issues amongst them. But education is a double edged sword. People normally get educated to increase their standards of living, to prosper and thus become bigger and better consumers with its attendant environmental problems. This is how the system works. The direct correlation between education and environmental degradation is not an argument against education itself but a drastic change in its orientation from one that is fixated on individual careers to another that inculcates wider responsibilities. So how do we explain environmental improvements in rich countries? Much of the pollution is exported elsewhere. Developing countries are rapidly becoming the manufacturing bases of the multinational corporations, cheap and unorganised labour being one of the major factors. Also, Europe for example, having exhausted its easily exploitable material resources imports its requirements mostly from Africa. But in doing so Europe may be foreclosing on the development prospects of the African countries themselves. Additionally, Europe’s own “unsustainable rates of production are using up the planets sinks for waste, which will no longer be available in the future”. Africa and indeed much of the developing world are being sucked into unsustainable practices of the more affluent countries at a great cost to their future development. Multi national mining conglomerates acted with great alacrity in obtaining vast mining rights in the Congo with the Government that succeeded Mobuto’s regime.

GEO 3 does suggest that reduction of excessive consumption by the more affluent countries should be one of the key areas for attention to ensure the success of Sustainable Development. But when this is linked with the alleviation of poverty in poor countries, as it nearly always is, it loses its impact altogether. These two things are not equal. Surely the one fifth who consume 90 percent of the world’s resources have a proportionately greater responsibility to the four fifths who consume the remaining 10 percent. “Economic and political concerns have stalled attempts to change consumption patterns through new policies or instruments”. This is a carefully worded way of saying that the haves are not ready for change. But, who can blame them – that is democracy. Generous to a fault at times of crises in other parts of the world, but try the idea of sustainable development tax on them.

An Islamic Recipe

Are Muslims a part of the problem or a part of the solution? Sad to say much points to the former option.

As what we now understand by modernity advanced, as the secular ethic progressively seeped into the Muslim psyche and as industrial development, economic indicators and consumerism became the governing parameters of society, there has been a corresponding erosion of the Muslim perception of the holistic and a withering of its understanding of the sacred nexus between the human community and the rest of the natural order.

The creation of the heavens and the earth is far greater than the creation of mankind.
But most of mankind do not know it”.
(Al Qur’an - 40:56)

Silent Spring is a seminal work written by Rachel Carson in 1962. It has the reputation of giving the modern environmental movement a big push in the right direction. It was in a sense a wake up call “which many consider a turning point in our understanding of the inter-connections between the environment, economy and social well being”. But where have the Muslims been all this time? The Qur’an encapsulates this idea succinctly thus -

What is in the heavens and the earth belongs to Allah.
Allah encompasses everything.
(Al Qur’an - 4:125)

It could be said that we are now devouring the womb that nourishes us and gives us succour. But this was not how it was. There was a time, and not a very long time ago, when all the people on this earth lived in close affinity with the natural world. The earth was not seen then as an economic resource. “Development” with its destructive consequences and “progress” with its polluting consequences are buzz words invented in the latter half of the last century. Those who invented these words have grown richer, as they wanted for others what they wanted for themselves, and stronger as they devour the finite resources that are the birth right of those others, with increasing ferocity.

Islam and the other traditions having been reduced to religion, superstition and black magic there is now only one prevailing world view and that is secularism. Sustainable Development is a secular idea, invented by secular institutions to deal with a problem of gigantic proportions created by a secular mindset. How we have been seduced into this is a matter for discussion in another place but what we have been seduced into would bear some cursory examination. At its very basic the difference between Islam and the secular ethic could be reduced to two factors. One of these is our attitude to existence and our relationship with the natural world. The other is about that element which makes the world go round in a dizzy spin today - money.

The traditional world-view, which includes that of the West, was challenged by what we have come to know as the Enlightenment, which has its origins in 16th century Europe. These events are usually seen as a time in which science began its ascendancy over religion. Richard Tarnas observes that this movement achieved its maturity in the 19th century, finally resulting in a radical shift of psychological alliance from the divine to humankind. Descartes, the French philosopher and mathematician, finally breached the flood gates of the old order by splitting mind from body and proclaiming a dualistic world view in his well-known statement “I think, therefore I am” (cogito ergo sum). The fruit of the dualism between rational subject and the material world was science, including the scientific capacity for rendering intelligible certain aspects of the material world and for making man in Descartes’ own words, “master and possessor of nature”.

This view is on a collision course with how Islam teaches Muslims to view the world. There is only one master and possessor of nature and that is the one who created it, Allah (subhanahu wa ta‘ala). This is unequivocally expressed in the first line of the first verse in the Qur’an:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.
(Al Qur’an - 1:1)
and the last verse

Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of mankind,
the King of mankind,
the God of mankind …
(Al Qur’an - 114:1-3)

Two philosophers of the Frankfurt School, Adorno and Horkheimer, wrote in the 1940s : Since the Enlightenment (roughly 17th, 18th and 19th centuries) a way of thinking evolved that was seen as liberating men from fear (meaning religion) and establishing their sovereignty over everything they see, hear and touch. Men’s lives are controlled by men by sets of rules determined by men. Mankind is apart from nature and nature becomes an object that is manipulated, controlled and exploited. This is done for the benefit of mankind. The result of this confrontation with nature is alienation of the human from his own nature. The struggle to control external nature results in the struggle turning inwards on the species itself. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr observes, “there is near total disequilibrium between modern man and nature as attested by nearly every expression of modern civilisation which seeks to offer a challenge to nature rather than to co-operate with it”.

At its very basic the philosophical formulations of Descartes turned the human race into a predator. For what he was “proposing was a new religious revelation, a radical revision of nature that had not really occurred to any other social animal” or to any previous civilisation in human history. The Qur’an shows us where we belong –

Allah’s natural pattern on which He made mankind.
There is no changing Allah’s creation.
(Al Qur’an - 30:29)

Humankind was created within the natural patterning of nature and being of it, its role is defined by this very same patterning. This is at one and the same time both a simple and lucid ecological definition of our place in the natural order -

Allah created humankind as part of His original creation to function within His original scheme. We were then subjected to Allah’s unchangeable laws as was the rest of creation, making us - at the biological level - equal partners with the rest of nature. The different elements of the universe working together keep nature in balance. We can modify the environment to suit our purposes up to a point but we cannot change its basic make up. The environmental problems we experience today could be described as adjusting mechanisms that keep the earth in order. Like the human body the earth is a self-healing entity and it will tend to close the wounds inflicted upon it. Also like the human body the earth will react drastically to the deeper levels of injury we keep subjecting it to. But we have yet to understand these processes.

There would be no life on this earth without air and water. These are basic elemental gifts to us by the One who brought us into being. But, there is another ‘element’, which is entirely of our own making, which we have made nearly as indispensable as air and water. That is money, or rather the kind of money that we have conspired to bring into existence in the modern world. One increasingly comes across interesting appraisals of it like the following for example -

In spite of all its fervid activity, money remains a naked symbol with no intrinsic value of its own and no direct linkage to anything specific.

Money has come to be recognised as mere tokens and

There is something quite magical about the way money is created. No other commodity works quite the same way. The money supply grows through use; it expands through debt. The more we lend, the more we have. The more debt there is, the more there is.

These tokens of value that we create from nothing and use every day grow exponentially ad infinitum. But we know that the natural world, which is subject to drastic resource depletion, has limits and is finite. This equation is lopsided and the question is for how long can we continue to create this infinite amount of token finance to exploit the real and tangible resources of a finite world. Looked at from this perspective, money, as the modern world has conceived it, assumes the characteristics of a virus that eats into the fabric of the planet. The consequences of this become visible as global environmental degradation.

This magical system underwent a metamorphosis in 1971 when President Nixon unilaterally abandoned the gold standard. The background to this event is discussed below. It suffices to say now that, by abandoning the gold standard he also moved the world into a new standard: the interest standard.

It is generally known that Islam prohibits usury or the taking of interest and the term used in the Qur’an for this is riba. This term has wide connotations. Simply put, it means one cannot have something out of nothing. Thus, riba is also seen as prohibiting the free creation of credit. The Qur’an denounces these practices vehemently and we can see why from the foregoing discussion.

Those who practise riba will not rise from the grave except as someone driven mad by Shaytan’s (Satan’s) touch.
(Al Qur’an - 2:274)

Also,

You who have iman (faith)! Have taqwa (awe) of Allah and forgo any remaining riba if you are mu’minun (believers). If you do not, know that it means war from Allah and his Messenger.

(Al Qur’an - 2:277, 278)

No other proclamation in the Qur’an matches this degree of trenchancy.

The Bretton Woods Agreements concluded in 1944 as part of the process of post-war reconstruction put the US dollar centre-stage where all other trading currencies were linked to it in a system of fixed exchange rates. The US dollar itself had its value firmly linked to gold. One of the effects of this system was that it kept prices stable as money supply was in equilibrium with the real economy. In August 1971, President Nixon reneged on this agreement and decoupled the US dollar from gold for mainly domestic reasons. Kurtzman says of this -

…closing the gold window, although buried in a long laundry list of essentially useless economic policy changes, represent the biggest challenge to the world economy since the great depression… It was a change of monumental proportions that not only redefined money but created the opportunity to dramatically speed up the rate at which transactions between companies and countries took place. …It also initiated the process of decoupling the “money” economy from the “real” economy. As a result, two plus decades later, the money economy, where transactions take place purely for financial or speculative gain, and the real economy, where the world’s raw materials, goods and services are produced and traded are badly out of balance. That was Nixon’s economic legacy.

For Nixon read Bush and for Bretton Woods read Kyoto. The point is national interest rules supreme and it takes priority over the rest of the world even at the expense of the rest of the world, be it trade or the environment. Even more importantly the entire planet has now been sucked into the vortex of the dollar in a manoeuvre that represents the antithesis of democracy. No state regardless of its political complexion is now free from the machinations of the dollar driven international financial system. As trillions of dollars float ephemerally in cyber space everyday, 1.2 million people (an UNEP estimate) live on less than US$1 per day.

Six trillion dollars American per day moves around in the international money market. Every serious banker I know tells me off the record that 95 percent of that is just paper (more like blips on a computer), it’s just inflation, it’s just moving stuff around in the South Sea bubble tradition. And in fact the growth of the international money market is one of the principle objects blocking our economies, blocking our societies, impoverishing our societies.

Money now is a mere abstraction. It is a disconcerting thought that our entire lives are built on this fiction and it is this fiction that makes globalisation possible and Sustainable Development, as its promoters have come to define it, almost impossible to achieve. Kurtzman observes:

“high-tech financial economy with its boom-and bust cyclicality and its daily volatility, has taken nearly complete charge of the real economy. For humanity as a whole, that is a new and highly uncertain condition”.

Analysts have come to the conclusion that the global economy is growing exponentially - that is doubling periodically as a direct reflection of how money is created (discussed above). Is it any wonder that there is an environmental crisis? Exponential growth of unreal wealth has caused the exponential growth of all human activity, including scientific inquiry, technological innovation and industrial production. It would not be far fetched to conclude that magicians are juggling with our lives on a vast scale. We are now ruled by routine fraud committed by the banks and financiers aided and abetted by the political establishment. This does not offer Muslims any mitigation from our own collusion in the process. Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir as-Sufi, one of the leading Muslim thinkers of our times observed that the democratic state is the service industry of the banks.

UNEP’s Millennium Report sees the future with some alarm -

… the global human ecosystem is threatened by grave imbalances in productivity and in the distribution of goods and services…sustainable progression of extremes of wealth and poverty threatens the stability of the whole human system…the world is undergoing accelerating (writer’s emphasis) change, with internationally co-ordinated environmental stewardship lagging behind economic and social development. Environmental gains from new technology and policies are being overtaken by the pace and scale of population growth and economic development. The processes of globalisation that are so strongly influencing social evolution need to be directed towards resolving rather than aggravating the serious imbalances that divide the world today.

Sustainable Development is an attempt to stop the flood and represents one of the major currents of modernity. In seeking an accommodation with globalisation those who speak on behalf of sustainability recognise its malign impact and call for a redirection of the influences it wields on the world today. It is as well to understand that in modernity we are dealing with an entity that makes it impossible for Muslims, individuals or nation states, to give expression to a normative Islam. This model, which we are not inevitably a part of, is as we have seen, in direct conflict with two fundamentals that constitute the Islamic world-view. This condition may be described as a psychosis in Muslim society. It strives to maintain its deep attachment to Islam on the one hand, while on the other it persists in tasting the fruits of a globalised order run on principles which are an anathema to it and moreover not of its own making.

We are now living in an illusory world and one does not have to be a Muslim to understand this. In fact much of the cutting edge analysis for the current state of the planet comes, with rare exceptions, mainly from those who are not Muslims, although Islam gives the clearest understanding of this condition. All the evidence shows that we are hitching our futures even more firmly to a collapsing civilisation. There is clearly an issue of conflicting paradigms; one based on man’s domination over the natural world and the manipulation of greed through ephemeral money, and the other on submission to the will of the Creator and the conduct of transactions with what is real.

How then can Muslims accommodate the former? Muslims have been doing so for the past 200 years or so to the extent that the shari‘ah is now a moribund, if not a dead, force. For example, even in countries that claim to be Islamic, the system of awqafs that served Muslims so well over the centuries by providing schools, hospitals and relief to the poor is now replaced by riba-based real estate ventures. At another level, it is interesting to note that efforts to meet the challenge of environmental degradation in Muslim countries are made by secular agencies. It is all but forgotten that deep in the matrix of the shari‘ah there exists institutions that can effectively deal with these problems.

This is the critique, but what can Muslims offer as viable solutions. The current international political climate is perhaps a good opportunity to re-evaluate our position in the fold of humanity and assert our authority once again. The issues we have discussed in this paper go to the heart of the matter - the glitter and dazzle of modernity is unsustainable. Our responses and our priorities should be based on the moral authority of being of service to humanity –

Let there be a community among you who call to the good,
and enjoin the right and forbid the wrong,
they are the ones who have success.
(Al Qur’an - 3:104)

There are between 1.3 and 1.6 billion Muslims in the world today depending on who makes the calculations and this can be a massive force for good.

The idea of Sustainable Development as it has evolved today is said to contain three pillars, namely social, economic and environment. Whilst people wrestle with this idea and attempt to bring it into fruition we need to consider alternatives. Sustainable living sounds a more realistic proposition and this would seem to be the way people always conducted their daily lives before nature was subjected to a massive assault in the name of development and became an exploitable resource. For Muslims sustainable living is based on the Fitra - the natural paradigm of Allah ta‘ala’s creation and adding the spiritual and political to the three pillars of sustainable development would make this a very Islamic concept. These five pillars in fact define the externalities of the Islamic system and balance out the classical five pillars of individual practise.

There is an urgent need for change and one gets a sense of this from reading UNEP’s own reports. Muslims can act as catalysts and give leadership in bringing about this change, working from Islamic principles and offering it to the world at large. Our major thrust should be on the establishment of shari‘ah based financial and trading systems because this is where the problems lie today. There is a tried and tested Islamic monetary system based on the Gold Dinar and the Silver Dirham and the leading proponents of this today is the worldwide Murabitun movement. It is small and in its infancy, but it is growing. Islamic currency however is not a monopoly. It is both global and local and it is about people and not about profit. It is available to all and can be developed by any Muslim group anywhere bearing in mind that the example has already been set. It should not be forgotten that the Kruger Rand could be a force to be reckoned with in international transactions. It is a paradox of our times that people willingly exchange gold for worthless paper tokens and we should learn from the examples of Argentina and Uruguay whose people are today estranged from their real wealth.

There is a need for two strategies, one that could be adopted by Muslim minorities living in countries like South Africa and another for Muslim countries themselves, where scope for positive action and experimentation within the shari‘ah is considerable. The establishment of the National Awqaf Foundation of South Africa is an excellent example of what can be done by minorities working within the laws of the countries they live in. It is also possible to adapt shari‘ah institutions within secular administrative systems. We are conducting an experiment in another part of Africa where a marine conservation zone is being set up as a hima. This is a type of nature protection zone, which is now almost extinct in the Islamic world. The scope is considerable.

Muslim countries need now to breath fresh life into those parts of the shari‘ah that deal with trade and environmental protection. The Organisation of Islamic Countries should urgently consider the re-establishment of the Islamic trading system, which served Muslims well for centuries. It should be open to all who want to participate, be anything but hegemonistic and decouple trading from the hypnotic effects of the illusory world of global finance. This may set in motion the very moves for a change in direction the world is waiting for. Islamic trade is sustainable trade for sustainable living.

Our task is nothing short of giving the quality of leadership that would give fresh hope to the world.

Allah ta‘ala says in Al Qur’an Al Karim

There are certainly signs in the earth
For people with certainty;
and in your selves as well.
Do you not then see?
(Al Qur’an - 51: 20, 21)

ARTICLE 2: Islamic Perspectives On Education for Sustainability at a Time of War and Conflict: The Importance of Being Good Neighbours

Muhammad Imran

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him (pbuh)) said: “The angel Gabrielle kept commending my neighbour to me until I thought he was to be my designated heir”.

Effective education resulting in sustainable human activity, and in the continual improvement of a society, rests on peace prevailing….and peace in a society rests on citizens acting in a spirit of neighbourliness. Muslims are exhorted to act as conscientious neighbours no matter who their neighbour may be. The Prophet (pbuh) said: “He whose neighbour goes hungry, is not one of us”. No race, no religion, no condition upon identity was prescribed for that neighbour: ALL neighbours are to be cared for.

Today, multi-cultural education rallies around the renowned maxim: do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. And in this globalised, interdependent world, all human beings have virtually become neighbours to each other. So the Muslim mindset is that each of us should act in a neighbourly way with the rest of humanity, doing unto our neighbours, as we would have them do unto us.

It is the breakdown of this spirit of neighbourliness that leads to conflict and to war.

How to act as a neighbour; how to be a citizen; how to fulfil one’s human potential, are all integral to the educational approach advocated by Islam. Effective education and sustainability are intertwined. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) warned us that if we have not improved ourselves with each passing day then we are in state of loss. And change and improvement should be a steady, continual and sustainable process. Muhammad (pbuh) said: “The best of deeds is the continuing one, even if it is small.”

Muslims believe that there will always be enough resources on the planet to meet the needs of all human beings. What is failing is how these resources are being distributed. Muslims are exhorted to be restrained in how they utilise resources, to the point of using water sparingly when making ablution even though there may be a flowing river near by.

Muhammad (pbuh) advised us to pass through this life as wayfarers: he taught that this life is akin to resting in the shade of a tree before continuing on with a journey. This reminder of the very temporary nature of life encourages us not to waste and squander, nor to be consumed by greed, for all that we hoard will not be able to accompany us on our onward journey. Consideration should, instead, be given to future generations; to those who will come after us and rest under that same tree. Our experience in this life should be based on charity, alleviating the poor and protecting the weak, all of which are investments for our hereafter.

The poor of the world are often blamed for their environmentally unfriendly and unsustainable practices eg deforestation, but can they be blamed if they are acting in the face of poverty and destitution? What needs to be examined is why they have such limited access to resources and, unsurprisingly, so often the reasons can be traced back to human (political) causes (government policies, debt, conflict etc).

What needs to be challenged is how resources are distributed. If existing world resources were shared on amore equitable basis, then more would have the surplus wealth to engage in education and learn the skills required to act in sustainable activity and secure prosperity; and with prosperity peace is reinforced.

How to educate people to act sustainably so that today’s resources are not squandered, so as to avoid leaving tomorrow’s generations to suffer, is the issue. To do this, wealth has to be more evenly shared to facilitate education. In Islam the mechanisms of zakat and sadaqa exist. Every Muslim has to pay a yearly charity tax (zakat) of 2.5% of existing wealth and on going charity (sadaqa) is promoted. The hoarding of wealth is thereby discouraged and prevented. In the Islamic world, the concept of “waqf” (charitable investment) has also underpinned many public charitable services; in this way a hospital or a school, for example, may be maintained by the profits from a business or from renting out land or property; the base capital of the investment never being touched by the charitable endeavour.

Prophet (pbuh) said: “Allah supports his servant so long as his servant supports his brother.” And we can support each other with good advice, just as the Prophet (pbuh) helped a beggar to buy an axe and then advised him to support his family by gathering firewood. Giving good business advice, helping small businesses with start up loans and resources, are of course what many sustainable livelihood support programmes aspire to do today.

In addition to capital and finance, people today now talk about ‘social capital’ being the vital ingredient for the sustainable development of a society. Social capital is sometimes defined as: “the ability to work together for the collective good.” This requires trust; it requires a neighbourly spirit. It is the breakdown of this trust that leads ultimately to insecurity and instability, and then to conflict and war. Where there is no peace, there is no security. Where there is no security there is no investment; a lack of investment prevents educating people in sustainable activity. And even those who do have skills are not able to engage in sustainable activity because of the winds of chaos and uncertainty that gust in times of conflict.

A week spent in Mogadishu a couple of years ago was enough to illustrate to me what happens when there is no trust, no inward investment, no education, no continuous sustainable activity to keep people gainfully employed: grinding poverty ruled over by the barrel of the gun!

To avoid war, trust has to be promoted. There are 3 principles that Islam emphasises:

1. Acquaintance leads to co-existence:

Allah Almighty says: O Mankind: We have created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is he who is the most righteous of you.” This is a call to all of humanity, not just Muslims. We are referred back to our creation, to parenthood, and to the basic reality that a strong, healthy family is the building block of a stable society.

This is also a call to become acquainted with one another. Acquaintance leads to familiarity and to interaction, to trust, peace and prosperity. Despite our different languages and customs, we are asked to co-exist in mutual respect and with tolerance for one another, as has happened in previous phases of Muslim civilisation. One thinks of the stable Muslim society in Grenada, in medieval Spain, in which Jew, Christian and Muslim interacted freely, safely and securely.

2. The importance of cooperation:

Allah says: “Cooperate in good and piety, and do not cooperate in wrongdoing and aggression”.

Once again we see the concept of social capital being recommended. Muhammad (Pbuh) said: The hand of Allah is with the jamaat (the group).” He (Pbuh) also said that we should want for others what we want for ourselves. Working together for the common good secures peace and stability, and the opportunity for ongoing improvement.

3. The importance of mercy:

It is often said that the indicator to the condition of a civilisation is how it looks after the vulnerable. Where people can live free from the fear of poverty and tyranny, then trust permeates society, creativity and cooperation are unlocked, and stability is reinforced. Muhammad (pbuh) therefore encouraged the strong to look after the weak. He (pbuh) said: “Whoever looks after the widow and the pitiful is like the one who prays relentlessly and fasts continuously.”

Sustainability in society, the continuity of beneficial and non-wasteful activity, rests on a society having a social conscience as exemplified in the three principles outlined above. Achieving this state of mind and heart requires people to be educated in these worthy goals. And the more people who are educated in these concepts, the more people who share these ideals, the less likely it is that breakdown of trust can occur with all its dire consequences for peace and stability.

In the 1990s, the UN, through ‘Agenda 21’, championed “education, public awareness and training” as being “indispensable for achieving sustainable development”. In Development Education circles today, there is a belief that a society with a disposition to change, WILL change, and so development education focuses on highlighting that the potential to change is there for us all to activate.

And Islam also teaches that the potential to change is there, open for all. The Prophet (pbuh) related how, on a hot day, a prostitute once stopped by a dog dying of thirst. She took off one of her shoes, tied it to her shawl, and lowered it in to a nearby well to draw water for the dog, and for this Allah forgave her. The key is that if we change ourselves and how we act, then the effects of this may radiate out far and wide: and we all know how a child is quickly mesmerised by the way ripples from a dropped pebble can reach across the widest pool.

War is, of course, the enemy of peace! And peace is a prerequisite for the sort of education that promotes sustainability. In peacetime, people have the optimism and confidence to take responsibility for their lives and their environments. Efforts can be made to achieve financial sustainability through training in business and micro credit initiatives. Sustainability in knowledge can be achieved through teacher training and health education initiatives and technological sustainability can be achieved thorough promoting the use of “appropriate technology” that is user and environmentally friendly. In times of instability, rarely is this possible. People simply become preoccupied in learning how to survive; consideration cannot be afforded to anything but the short term. The villagers in Afghanistan or Congo know full well that landmines and the threat of increased militia violence so often hinder any gainful activity.

And in so many countries like Afghanistan, we see a waiting game. People are waiting for peace to truly break out; for security to be guaranteed in order for inward investment to be tempted, thereby fostering education and business that is ongoing and beneficial, which is sustainable.

Clearly the sustainable development of a society cannot be achieved if it is being ravaged by war. Yes, there are those who derive benefit from war: those who prosper from the proliferation of small arms across the world and the untold misery it condemns millions to, are there for anyone with an eye to see. Yes, in times of conflict, there are those who prosper; who make sustainable profits because the demand for the toys of war never seems to dry up.

And yet on a global scale, these are not profits to benefit everyone in the global village. Setting neighbour against neighbour can only lead to the ultimate destruction of all neighbourhoods. Continual war and conflict just takes the canoe, which bears humanity, closer to the vertical drop of a gushing waterfall.

Politicians, leaders, all people of influence, all of us, have to recognise that peace has to be built on justice, freedom from poverty and availability of opportunity. And this has to be accessible to all, otherwise frustration and despair will be left to ferment with potentially horrific consequences.

The Prophet (pbuh) said: “Even a smile is charity”. Acting as neighbours, even by just offering a smile is the first step outside our homes. Inside our homes, all of us have to engage in education for sustainability: developing a moral code to be passed from generation to generation so that peace in society is reinforced, and so that future generations stand to benefit from, and not be harmed by, the actions of those of us present today.

ARTICLE 3: Islam & GM
Muzammal Hussain

Introduction

As corporations strive for endless growth, more of our public services and the planets resources are viewed for potential ownership. This includes everything from oil to water, education and the postal service. Even the invasion of Iraq has been a business opportunity for private companies, allowing them to gain control of a bigger market. No stone, if big business (in its current unhealthy state) has its way, will be left unturned.

The most effective means to gain ownership of food is to genetically modify it, and then through patenting laws to take out the competition and hence ring-fence profits. If people say “No”, it might be helpful to claim that GM food can help solve some of the worlds problems, and that those getting in the way are “anti-science”. That way others might see these questioning individuals as standing in the way of progress.

In fact the motivation to create a global acceptance of GM food is so strong, that despite a lack of evidence to show GM to be of any value in tackling hunger, the worlds starving have nonetheless been used to try to convince people that it is. We have also been told that GM will help the environment, yet curiously the evidence seems to be in the other direction. The whole set up of big business is so outdated that not only is there pressure to manipulate foods, but there is also pressure to manipulate fact. Fortunately, as more people are renouncing their passivity, and involving themselves with global issues, the more we find that the truth stands out.

Although Muslims are active in certain campaigns, their potential influence is largely untapped on issues related to biotechnology, farming and free trade. Fortunately, this gap is becoming more widely recognized, and Muslims are looking for ways to engage with these issues in the light of Islamic teachings.

This essay, rather than being a comprehensive account on the subject of GM foods, is best viewed as a short introduction to it, with reference to some Islamic themes.

Tayyib – the forgotten factor

As far as food is concerned, in the Qur’ân, on each occasion that the word ‘halal’ (lawful) is mentioned with food, the word ‘tayyib’ (good) is also mentioned with it. For example:

"O ye people!
Eat of what is on earth,
Lawful and good"
Quran (2:168)

"So eat of the sustenance
which God has provided
For you, lawful and good"
Quran (16:114)

What makes this interesting is that it takes the issue of food into an area often overlooked by most of us. The word ‘tayyib’ means good, which includes the meaning of the food being wholesome, and pure from its source. The relevance and practical implications of these verses increase in value, as more powerful interventions are available to manipulate our food. GM changes the physical nature of food at the most profound level - the DNA - and so such an intervention on our food needs immediate questioning, as to whether or not it is in accordance with Islamic teachings.

There is also the following verse in the Qur’ân, which warns against changing God’s creation :

“So set thy face to the religion, one of pure faith –
God's original upon which He originated humankind.
There is no changing God's creation.
That is the right religion; but most men know it not.”
(Qur’ân - 30:30)

GM food and crops should at least be considered with the above verse in mind.

Taking the genie out of the bottle

Once released GM crops are next to impossible to control. Pollen carried many miles by the wind and bees means that conventional and organic crops can get contaminated at a distance. This increases the likelihood of harmful consequences spreading and we become less able to eat non-GM food. There is also evidence suggesting some GM crops to be more damaging wildlife. The Qur’ân describes how “mischief” – “on land and sea” is “a taste of some of our deeds” to help guide us back :

"Mischief has appeared on land and sea
because of the meed that the hands of men have earned,
that God may give them a taste of some of their deeds –
in order that they may turn back from evil"
(Qur’ân - 30:41)

As life is interconnected and events rarely happen in isolation it would be difficult to predict the overall knock-on effects that releasing these crops is having on the rest of creation, and yet GM crops are already growing over millions of hectares worldwide.

GM Crops, Corporate dependance and World hunger

To be clearer about this issue, it is helpful to also look at even wider implications. For instance, what effects will GM foods have on yields and will there be any benefit for the millions of starving? Who will be in charge of the way in which this technology is used and can we go back if it creates serious problems?

Regarding yields, interestingly the evidence suggests that GM crops have so far made little, if any impact in this area (See ‘Seeds of Doubt’ below). In fact contrary to what might be expected, independent evidence from the US shows that rather than GM foods having higher yields, yields from GM crops in fact, are frequently lower than from their non-GM counterparts.

More importantly however, if providing food for the starving is the objective, there must be a greater emphasis on the distribution of food rather than the global quantity, especially when we already have enough of it. Global distribution can, to give one example, be supported by programs that provide jobs and help alleviate poverty, thereby allowing people to have an income through which they can then purchase the food that is already there. On the other hand, reliance on technologies, (if effective), can lead to a loss of jobs and income for some of the world’s poor, thus contributing to poverty and increasing the likelihood for hunger, rather than reducing it.

Rather than empowering farmers, GM also increases dependence on multinationals and fits in with a more centralised system of food production. This displaces small-scale producers and increases transport costs and associated pollution.

In essence, the evidence suggests that GM is not about helping the poor, the starving or the environment, but about profits for a few multinationals to give a temporary fix to their insatiable hunger for growth. A ‘magic bullet’ method is being put forward for problems whose causes go deeper. It is by getting to the underlying issues and working with the interconnectedness that exist between the soil, our food, trade and communities that we work with respect for the unity of life that is reflected in Islamic teachings.

Taking Action

"It is He who has appointed you viceroys of the earth"
(Qur’ân - 6:165)

So what can Muslims do? Here are some suggestions and perhaps you may have some of your own:

1) Self-Purification. The disease of wanting more and more is not just confined to corporations, but is something that we might, from time-to-time, notice in ourselves. By recognizing this and engaging in spiritual practice to purify ourselves we come from a more true and compassionate place. In addition if we change, then so too does humanity, for each of us is a part of it.

2) Go Organic! – (It’s also more Islamic!) Organic food is more in alignment with Islamic principles and is also GM free. It can indeed cost a little more financially, but it can cost the environment a lot less, and pose less risk to our health. It also helps to buy food which is locally produced as this discourages long distance transport and the resultant production of greenhouse gases. Buying from local food stores and markets (rather than big chain stores) helps to nurture local communities.

3) Stay informed about the issues. Subscribe to an informative email list or magazine to help keep you in the picture and to hear about future related events. To join a low traffic e-list (2 to 4 emails/month) on GM and related issues for UK Muslims (and increasingly non-Muslims!): send an email to muzammal@phonecoop.coop with “subscribe” in the subject box.

4) Get together with like-minded friends, meet fortnightly or monthly, sip on some chai or fruit drink, discuss these and other issues and come up with ways to get active!

Websites and Magazines

· GM Foods & Islam website: www.islamicgmfocus.org
· The Ecologist: An informative magazine “rethinking basic assumptions”. Forward thinking articles written by leading environmentalists on issues such as GM foods, free trade, corporations, climate change, biodiversity etc. www.theecologist.org
· Seeds of Doubt: an in-depth and readable report (about 65 pages) produced at the end of last year by the Soil Association. The report looks at the impact of GM crops on US farmers. www.soilassociation.org - 0117 929 0661

Organisations

· The Islamic Foundation For Ecology & Environmental Sciences. www.ifees.org - 0845 456 3960 for GM food related enquiries and 0121 440 3500 for all other enquiries
· 'Five Year Freeze’ campaign. If you play a leading role in an organisation, please consider joining this umbrella body. There are already more than 100 members including IFEES, Islamic Concern, Christian Aid, Greenpeace and others. The common ground is that all members support a minimum five-year freeze on GM in food and farming, allowing enough time for a wide-scale debate on the issue. www.fiveyearfreeze.org - 020 7837 1141

IMAAD accepts no liability for information contained on external websites or for literature coming from third parties. Neither does a link to site imply IMAAD's support for the content of the site, the organisation associated with the site or any third parties the site's content pertains to.