Abstract
In this chapter, we look at the current environmental crisis from an Islamic legal point of view. We briefly review the question of scriptural versus scientific authority and how Islamic environmental law is firmly based on scriptural authority. We then consider the issue of stewardship and humankind’s position as “caliph on the earth.” In particular, we emphasize the all-important Qur’anic prohibition of usury, and how the current worldwide prevalence of usury, embedded in the practice of fractional reserve banking, results in the worldwide despoliation of the environment that we now see around us. This key to understanding the crisis also enables us to highlight what needs to be done if we want to confront this crisis.
“He saw all ecological issues ... as subsumed under the workings out of the usury economy.”
(I. Dallas, The Ten Symphonies of Gorka König, 1989.)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Michael S. Northcott, The Environment and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 2. For a similar assessment, see, for example, Roger S. Gottlieb (ed), This Sacred Earth (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 3–10, 14 n. 9.
- 2.
See Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1407/1987), 2:21–26; idem, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1976), 1:33.
- 3.
al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, tr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Arabic-English parallel text, 2d rev. ed. (Ankara: Hilal Yayinlari, 1976), 3:406.
- 4.
For a useful summary of the main views on this point, see Northcott, The Environment and Christian Ethics, Chapter 2.
- 5.
See Ibn Rushd al-Jadd, al-Bayān wa-l-taḥṣīl wa-l-sharḥ wa-l-tawjīh wa-l-ta‘līl fī masā’il al-Mustakhraja, ed. Muḥammad Ḥajjī et al. (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1404–7/1984–7), 17:236; also Muslim, Sahih Muslim bi-sharh al-Nawawi, 15:116–18; idem, Sahih Muslim, tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, 4:1259–60.
- 6.
See Ibn Rushd al-Jadd, Bayān, 17:237.
- 7.
See Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Mayyāra, al-Durr al-thamīn wa-l-mawrid al-ma‘īn, sharḥ “al-Murshid al-mu‘īn” (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.), 15; Ibn Ḥamdūn, Ḥāshiyat Ibn Ḥamdūn ‘alā sharḥ Mayyāra li-manẓūmat Ibn ‘Āshir al-musammāt bi-“al-Murshid al-mu‘īn,” 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1392/1972), 1:18.
- 8.
For current views on this issue, see, for example, Northcott, The Environment and Christian Ethics, esp. 126ff., 179–80; Gottlieb, “Introduction” to This Sacred Earth, 9 and 14, n. 9); David Kinsley, “Christianity as Ecologically Harmful” and “Christianity as Ecologically Responsible,” in Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth, 104–24.
- 9.
This is the standard interpretation of major Qur’anic commentaries such as the Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (see al-Ṣāwī, Ḥāshiyat al-Ṣāwī ‘alā Tafsīr al-Jalālayn [Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.], 1:19–20) and Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī (al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta’wīl [Dār al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya: Cairo, 1330 [1912]], 1:135). The word can also be taken to mean “one who follows after” in a simple chronological sense, but this would not affect the basic argument, evident throughout the Qur’an, that humans have been given “everything that is on the Earth” but are at the same time responsible for what they do with it, as will become apparent in the following paragraphs.
- 10.
Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī, 17:55; idem, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, tr. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, 4:1432.
- 11.
See for example Qur’an 14:33, 16:12, 29:61, 31:29, 35:13, 39:5 (the sun and the moon); 14:33, 16:12 (day and night); 14:32 (the rivers); 16:14 (the sea); 31:20, 45:13 (everything).
- 12.
See, for example, Othman Llewellyn, “Desert Reclamation and Islamic Law,” The Muslim Scientist, 11 (1982): 9–29 (an edited version of this article appeared as “Desert Reclamation and Conservation in Islamic Law” in Islam and Ecology, ed. Fazlun Khalid with Joanne O’Brien [London: Cassell, 1992], 87–97); Yasin Dutton, “Natural Resources in Islam,” in Khalid and O’Brien, eds., Islam and Ecology, 51–67; idem, “Islam and the Environment: A Framework for Enquiry,” in Faith in Dialogue, Number One/1996; Faiths and the Environment: Conference Papers, ed. Christopher Lamb (Middlesex University: Centre for Inter-Faith Dialogue, 1996), 46–70 (an edited version was reprinted in Islam and the Environment, ed. Harfiyyah Abdel Haleem [London: Ta-Ha Publishers, 1998], 56–74, 138–43).
- 13.
See preceding note for references.
- 14.
See Ibn Mājah, Sunan, ed. Muḥammad Fu’ād ‘Abd al-Bāqī (n.p.: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, n.d.), 2.1325 (70 times); al-Qurtubī, Aḥkām al-Qur’ān (Cairo: Maṭba‘at Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1935–50), 3:364 (36 and 99 times).
- 15.
See, for example, Northcott, The Environment and Christian Ethics, Chapter 2, esp. 45–6.
- 16.
Frederick Soddy, Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (London: Allen and Unwin, 1926), 157; cited also in Jeffrey Mark, The Modern Idolatry (London: Chatto and Windus, 1934), 85.
- 17.
Cited in Mark, The Modern Idolatry, 81.
- 18.
Cited in Ezra Pound, What Is Money For? (London: Greater Britain Publications, 1939), 2; reprinted in Pound, Selected Prose: 1909–1965, ed. William Cookson (London: Faber and Faber, 1973), 260. Cf. Ezra Pound, Impact (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960), 46–7, 101, 108, 187.
- 19.
J.K. Galbraith, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (London: Pelican, 1976), 29.
- 20.
A.G. Anderton, Economics: A New Approach, new ed. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 18. See also idem, Economics (Ormskirk: Causeway Press, 1991:355–56). For non-economic-textbook descriptions of the same process, see, for example: Mark, The Modern Idolatry, 64–8; idem, Analysis of Usury (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1935: 121–23); Soddy, Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, 153–54; idem, The Arch-Enemy of Economic Freedom (Knapp, Enstone, Oxon: 1943:2–7); C.H. Douglas, The Monopoly of Credit, 4th ed. (Sudbury: Bloomfield Books, 1979), 19–21, 158–60; C.P. Jacob, Economic Salvation (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1933: 123–24).
- 21.
In the 1930s the percentages were in the order of 2% coins, 18% banknotes and 80% bank deposits (see Mark, The Modern Idolatry, 55; idem, Analysis of Usury, 29). Now, with the advent of credit cards and other forms of ‘‘electronic money,’’ the percentage of “cash,” that is, coins and banknotes, in the economy is between 1 and 2%, with this figure likely to decrease further (see Anderton, Economics, 1991: 355).
- 22.
For references, see n. 17 above.
- 23.
Mark, The Modern Idolatry, 70.
- 24.
“Undercurrents of 1994,” broadcast on BBC2 TV, 31 December 1994.
- 25.
Eugene Linden, “The Birth of Death,” Time, 2 January 1989, 22; cited also in Umar Vadillo, The End of Economics (Granada: Madinah Press, 1991), 26.
- 26.
For three other such examples, see the London Financial Times (23 January 1989), 16 (the French nuclear program); Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species (London: Victor Gollancz, 1982), 106, 203–4 (the mining of molybdenum in Colorado, USA, and the whaling industry); also Dutton, “Islam and the Environment,” 60–61.
- 27.
See Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Maymaniyya, 1313 [1895]), 2:494; also Ibn Mājah, Sunan, 2:765; al-Nasā’ī, Sunan (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Maymaniyya, 1312 [1894]), 2:212.
- 28.
For the establishment of this market and some of the conditions of its use, see, for example, Ibn Shabba, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, ed. Fahīm Muḥammad Shaltūt, 2d ed. (Jeddah: Dār al-Iṣfahānī li-l-Ṭibā‘a, 1393 [1973]), 1:304; al-Samhūdī, Wafā’ al-wafā’ bi-akhbār dār al-Muṣṭafā, ed. Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd (Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1374/1955), 2:747–49; M.J. Kister, “The Market of the Prophet,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 8 (1965): 273–75; Pedro Chalmeta, El “Señor del Zoco” en España (Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura, 1973), 62–64.
References
al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan. 1976. Arabic-English Parallel Text. 2nd rev. ed. Ankara: Hilal Yayinlari 3:406.
Anderton, A.G., 1990. Economics: A New Approach. new ed. London: Unwin Hyman. 18.
Dallas, Ian. 1989. The Ten Symphonies of Gorka König. London: Kegan Paul International. 84.
Galbraith, J.K. 1976. Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went. London: Pelican.
Ibn Rushd al-Jadd. n.d. al-Bayān wa-l-taḥṣīl wa-l-sharḥ wa-l-tawjīh wa-l-ta‘līl fī masā’il al-Mustakhraja, ed. Muḥammad Ḥajjī et al. (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1404–7/1984–7), 17:236.
Linden, Eugene. 2 January 1989. The Birth of Death. Time, 22.
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Mayyāra. n.d. al-Durr al-thamīn wa-l-mawrid al-ma‘īn, sharḥ “al-Murshid al-mu‘īn” (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.), 15; Ibn Ḥamdūn, Ḥāshiyat Ibn Ḥamdūn ‘alā sharḥ Mayyāra li-manẓūmat Ibn ‘Āshir al-musammāt bi-“al-Murshid al-mu‘īn.” 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1392/1972), 1:18.
Muslim. n.d.-a. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī, 17:55; idem, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, 4:1432.
———. n.d.-b. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-Nawawī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1407/1987), 2:21–26; idem, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi. Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1976, 1:33.
———. n.d.-c. Sahih Muslim bi-sharh al-Nawawi, 15:116–18; idem, Sahih Muslim. trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, 4:1259–60.
Northcott, Michael S. 1996. The Environment and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pound, Ezra. 1939. What Is Money For? London: Greater Britain Publications. 2; Reprinted in Pound, Selected Prose: 1909–1965, ed. William Cookson. London: Faber and Faber, 1973. Cf. Ezra Pound, Impact. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960: 46–7, 101, 108, 187.1991), 26.
Soddy, Frederick. 1926. Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt. London: Allen and Unwin.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dutton, Y. (2022). The Environmental Crisis of Our Time and the Ethics of Stewardship: A Muslim Response. In: Sherma, R.D., Bilimoria, P. (eds) Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79301-2_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79301-2_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-79300-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-79301-2
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)