Islam, Hinduism, Ecology and Religion

Article Review by Owen Brown

Richard Foltz (2003) says in his article 'Islamic environmentalism in theory and practice' that the only thing one should take into account when trying to understand the Islamic perspective on ecology is the Koran and, for Sunni Muslims, the Hadith. And such environmentally friendly sources, argues Foltz, abound. For example, the Koran says that man is the steward over the earth, that all the animals of the earth are like people to Allah, it condemns people who waste their food and destroy plant and animal life senselessly. Muhammad is reported to have said in the Hadith to reduce the amount of pain inflicted when slaughtering animals, that mercy shown to creatures is rewarded, and, interestingly, to live in the world as if one were to remain here forever, and for the next world as if we were going to die tomorrow.

Of course, like all the great world religions today, environmental chaos was not an issue at the time Muhammad issued the Koran. Therefore, contemporary scholars have had to use the concept of qiyas -finding the fundamental meaning of an utterance in the Koran in order to apply it to situation or activity that was not explicitly discussed- to reach the Islamic position on environmental degradation. For example, when Muhammad reproached some people for urinating in a water supply, the meaning here could be understood to be ‘do not pollute our water’, providing contemporary Muslims with a religious reason to be environmentally conscientious. However, Islamic apologists and scholars do not usually address the problem of pollution etc. directly, but focus instead of the imbalances within society, seeing any environmental problems as by-product of such corruption. For example, the Koran prohibits interest.

A Muslim apologist would argue, then, that the greed of banks and countries, forcing people into environmentally destructive jobs in order to pay debts, is one of the major causes for the world’s current problems . The scholars emphasize that if the word of Allah had been practiced faithfully, none of these catastrophes would have occurred. After a discussion about how Muslim’s have tried to disseminate these ecological ideas throughout the Muslim, Richard Foltz concludes that the Koran should continue to be used in this skilful way to accommodate change and to deal with the new problems that face the Muslim community and the world at large.

Vasudha Narayanan, in her article ‘Water, Wood and Wisdom: Ecological Perspectives from the Hindu Traditions’, explores Hinduism’s potential for motivating environmental change and also its drawbacks. Narayanan acknowledges that India, with a population of over 800,000,000 Hindus, is facing an environmental crisis. She lists a number of reasons for this and, while acknowledging damaging influence of Western technology and ideology, points the finger mainly at the complacent, fatalistic, selective, materialistic (in the wealth-procuring not the philosophical sense), and environmentally ignorant mentality of many Hindus.

To elaborate, many Hindus are complacent and fatalistic because of the Hindu doctrine of inevitable decline. The world is understood to go through phases, ending in an age of utter degeneration and violence . Many Hindus see the current environmental crisis as evidence that we are in this ‘kaliyuga’, and are therefore disinclined to try and change what will necessarily occur. Hindus can also be very selective of their literature as, besides the Vedas, there is no real doctrine or teaching that is definitive and essential. Therefore, the positive ecological messages found in the Upanishads and so forth are not seen injunctions that must be carried out by any good Hindu, but just more philosophical tenets among many, diverse and sometimes contradictory Hindu codes and practices. Materialism is not something people would normally label as a Hindu characteristic. People generally think of Hundism in terms of its yoga schools of meditation, scholarship, simplicity and transcendence.

However the artha and kama literature is heavily materialistic, teaching adherents how to procure wealth and experience maximum human pleasure during life. These views are just as Hindu as the moksha literature, and just as prevalent in Hindu history and contemporary culture. Even the moksha texts, while being traditions of complete material renunciation, are criticized by Narayanan for their neglect of the world, and therefore passive destruction.

Finally, environmentally ignorant because of views like the ‘Ganges are inherently pure’. The average Hindu, having deep faith in the rivers age and divinity, would not believe that it could ever be destroyed by mortals, yet this is exactly what is happening. To lighten the picture, Narayanan argues that if the ecologically positive Hindu texts are emphasized and greater education about the environment is provided, many aspects of Hinduism could certainly be used to benefit India and the other nations where Hindus dwell.

Bibliography

1. Narayanan V, 2003, Water, wood and wisdom. Ecological perspectives from the Hindu traditions, in RC Foltz, Ed., Worldviews, religion and the environment: a global anthology, London, Thomson Wadsworth, 130-143.
2. Foltz RC, 2003, Islamic environmentalism in theory and practice. In Worldviews, religion and the environment: a global anthology, London, Thomson Wadsworth, 358-365.

Photo from the website from the wonderful environment program in Indonesia, the Sukunan Program, developed by Iswanto, environmental health scientist and educator, and community environmental educator, Lea Jellinick. For further information see, http://www.insideindonesia.org/edit80/p14jell.html http://arts.monash.edu.au/mai/research/sukunan/iswanto-tour.pdf