In addition to this sampling, you can also view a YouTube playlist of Islam and Ecology videos here.
Islamic perspective on environmental protection- ''Role of Faith in Protecting the Earth'' workshop
URI/MENA
December 17, 2022
Sheikh Haythem Limam, Content Manager, Radio Zitouna FM (For Holy Quran) and an affiliate of KAICIID Dialogue Centre, spoke about the role of Islam in protecting the environment during the ''Role of Faith in Protecting the Earth'' workshop which was organized by the URI MENA under the UNEP Faith for Earth initiative in Amman on 17 December 2022.
IIUM Academy
November 22, 2022
May 23, 2022
This is a clip from the episode of Spotlights featuring Huda Alkaff, the Founder and Director of Wisconsin Green Muslims, a grassroots group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin formed in 2005 to connect faith, environmental justice, and sustainability through education and service. In this clip, she talks about the cosmological and ecological orientation of Islam, particularly as expressed in the Quran and Hadith. Details for the full episode are here: https://fore.yale.edu/blogs/entry/165…
Huda Alkaff, Wisconsin Green Muslims
Spotlights Episodes, 2.34
Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
May 16, 2022
This week's episode of Spotlights features Huda Alkaff, an ecologist and environmental educator. She discusses her work as the Founder and Director of Wisconsin Green Muslims, a grassroots group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin formed in 2005 to connect faith, environmental justice, and sustainability through education and service. She talks about ecological values expressed in the Quran and Hadith, the cosmological orientation of Islamic practice, the importance of interfaith collaboration, solar energy development, protecting freshwater resources, and much more. More information about Wisconsin Green Muslims is available here: https://wisconsingreenmuslims.org/ More resources about the intersection of Islam and ecology are available on the Forum on Religion and Ecology website: https://fore.yale.edu/World-Religions…
The Environmental Spirit of Islam, with Huda Alkaff and Dr. Saiyid Shah
Sufi Center Minnesota
December 6, 2021
The environmental spirit of Islam is manifested principally in six ways: through the Oneness of Allah and His creation (tawhid), Justice (Adl), compassionate stewardship (Khalifa), signs of the Creator (Ayat), trust with the Creator (Amana), and living in just balance with nature (Mizan). We will discuss these dimensions through the optics of faith in action as manifested by the various works and activities of the ISNA Green Initiative Team, which is putting the core environmental tenants of Islam into practice. We will also discuss stewardship as a collective responsibility to care for Mother Earth and each other across all faiths, nationalities, and ethnicities through the areas of advocacy, environmental justice, and personal lifestyle choices and consumption.
Environmentalism and the Ecological Question in the Islamic Moral Tradition
CILE Center: Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics
November 9, 2021
This public lecture broadly examines the so-called “Ecological Question (EQ)” from an Islamic perspective. Without narrowing the EQ down to the exclusive issue of sustainability, this lecture highlights the broader picture by exploring the vast and rich Islamic tradition. Besides addressing the relevant Quranic concepts, the speakers will engage with various scholarly disciplines grounded in the Islamic tradition. Speakers: Naiyerah Kolkailah (University of Oxford, UK); Birgit Krawietz (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany); Munjed Murad (Harvard University, US); Moderator: Mohammed Ghaly (CILE, Hamad Bin Khalifa University)
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf on climate change
unEarth Muslims
November 2, 2021
Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics
May 2021
This 2-day seminar discusses the question of food security with three combined perspectives: the world response to the challenge of sustainable food security, the Islamic perspective in addressing food security concerns, and the most vulnerable groups who face this issue, including women, children, migrants and the displaced.
Food Security and Islamic Ethics: Human Rights, State Policies, and Vulnerable Groups, Day 1
Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics
May 2021
This 2-day seminar discusses the question of food security with three combined perspectives: the world response to the challenge of sustainable food security, the Islamic perspective in addressing food security concerns, and the most vulnerable groups who face this issue, including women, children, migrants and the displaced.
2021 Ramadan Halaqa Series: Environmental Justice, Dignity, & Our Islamic Duty
Muslim Space
May 8, 2021
Muslim Space offers a 4-part Ramadan halaqa titled Human Dignity Series - Affirming and elevating God's honor to humankind. The goal of this episode is to elevate the notion that all creation has been granted dignity from the Divine and it is incumbent on all believers to uphold this dignity, not only to ourselves but to others, specifically focusing on environmental destruction and how it robs current and future generations of dignity.
ISNA Green Initiative Webinar
Islamic Society of North America
March 22, 2021
In this panel on water equity and climate resilience in recognition of World Water Day, three Muslim women environmental activists discuss the principles of environmental justice as they relate to Islamic climate action and issues surrounding water.
University of St. Thomas, Minnesota
March 18, 2021
This Terrence Nichols Memorial Lecture event featured Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who is widely regarded as one of the leading Islamic thinkers in the world, speaking on what religion can offer for resolving the environmental crisis in the world today.
RIGHTS OF THE EARTH — Islam and the Environment
Oxford University Islamic Society
February 20, 2021
Fazlun Khalid, founder of the Islamic Federation of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and Hazim Azghari, currently researching his DPhil on the relationship between humans and the environment in the early centuries of Islam in the Mediterranean, present remarks on three broad areas of Islam and ecology. They cover: (1) evidence from the Qur'an and Sunnah that it is our obligation to care for the environment, and how we should go about it; (2) negative effects of climate change and environmental damage and its impact on Muslims around the world; and (3) current steps being taken by Muslim countries/communities to care better for the environment and tackle climate change and what steps we can take as individuals to help the cause.
Bayan Islamic Graduate School
February 15, 2021
Speakers: Dr. Sarra Tlili, Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, University of Florida - Gainesville; Dr. Anna M. Gade, Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin - Madison. Dr. Sarra Tlili's topic is “The Ecology of Wonder.” She will explore the ecological dimensions of three Qur’anic motifs: divine oaths, creation’s function as a set of signs, and creation’s inner dimension. Study of these motifs shows that through them the Qur’an fostered feelings of kinship and wonder toward nonhuman creation, thereby creating a favorable ecological impact. Dr. Anna M. Gade's topic is “Understanding Muslim Environmentalisms as Environmental Ethics.” She will present on current trends in global Environmental Ethics, offer perspectives on how Muslims have engaged these commitments in the past and present, as well as what Islamic approaches are now contributing to notions like environmental justice.
Environmental Justice in the Middle East: Activism, Resistance, and Decolonisation
Jadaliyya
November 12, 2020
This roundtable focuses on environmental justice, analysing the ways in which approaches to environmental studies have traditionally overlooked and under-emphasised the critical roles of communities directly impacted by environmental injustice. Focusing on environmental justice struggles in Palestine, the Golan Heights, Lebanon, and Iraq, speakers discuss how recognising and understanding the experiences of communities contending with protracted environmental injustice at the local level are critical to fully understanding the implications of international environmental injustice and the climate crisis. How have narrow definitions of environmental justice shaped policies? And how are communities resisting this repression?
Mosques, Imams, and Climate Action Webinar
Bahu Trust
November 6, 2020
Acknowleding the inherent environmentalism of Islam, a panel of Muslim environmental leaders and activists discusses the role that imams and mosques have to play in mobilizing for climate action.
egomonk
September 24, 2020
Fazlun Khalid | Make or Break
The New Muslim Think Tanks, M-talk Series
Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand
May 15, 2020
Fazlun Khalid's reputation is well established. He is known worldwide as a tireless advocate for the environment. His thoughts are rooted in religious traditions and have made him one of the fifteen major environmental thinkers of our time (Grist magazine, US July 24, 2000). He is also one of the “500 Most Influential Muslims in the World,” according to the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center of Jordan. He is at the origin of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, the first Islamic NGO in the world. He is a member of the United Nations Task Force, which deals with environmental issues.
Dr. Husna Ahmad: A Global Ethical Approach to Social Justice and Environmental Issues: Ethical Review of Global Environmental Status
Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics
March 23, 2019
Dr. Husna Ahmad presents an ethical review of the global environmental status through the lens of the theological-Islamic perspective on climate change and environment. She discusses recent climate action by Islamic and other faith communities, as well as the linkages between ethics and environment in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Hadith #38 - The Rights of the Environment Upon You | 40 Hadiths on Social Justice
Yaqeen Institute
July 10, 2018
In Hadith #38 of the 40 Hadiths on Social Justice Series, Sh. Omar Suleiman breaks down the different facets of the environment that are described in the Qur'an and Sunnah, and how we can interact with them.
Edge Effects Podcast
May 15, 2018
K.H. Masrur Ahmad of Pondok Pesantren “Al-Qodir,” Cangkringan, Jogjakarta, Java, Indonesia
July, 2014
“Disaster Response and Religious Community at Mt. Merapi (2010)” from Green Islam in Indonesia on Vimeo.
“The Abrahamic Response to Journey of the Universe”
Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Heather Eaton, and Safei Eldin Hamed
Journey of the Universe and Our Elegant Universe Symposium
Chautauqua Institution
June 2013
Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Dr. Heather Eaton, and Dr. Safei Eldin Hamed offer responses from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions to Journey of the Universe. Rabbi Troster, a late Jewish environmental activist, draws from the Books of Genesis and Isaiah to suggest that the science of the universe story is offering people a vision of a new heaven and a new Earth. Dr. Heather Eaton, a theologian at Saint Paul University, highlights the need for Christians to retrieve its focus on creation, to reinterpret justice as ecojustice, and to reconstruct theologies of incarnation to encompass the entire Earth community. Dr. Safei Eldin Hamed, a scholar of environmental planning at Chatham University, interprets the Quran to suggest that there is equality between all creatures and that Islam can offer a holistic and functional cosmology for our contemporary world.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr: “Islam and the Preservation of the Natural Environment”
Georgetown University, Center for International and Regional Studies
January 26, 2009
CIRS began its Spring semester Faculty Distinguished Lecture Series with a talk by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, one of the foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world. He was introduced to the audience by Mohammed Al Sudairi, SFS-Qatar sophomore and President of the Blue and Gray theater club. Nasr's lecture, held at the Al Sharq hotel in Doha, outlined daily environmental struggles within an elaborate frame of spiritual Islam. This subject, Nasr emphasized, “is of gravest importance” because people have resorted to covering up the problem without actually finding a solution. Environmental destruction however, “will not be solved by cosmetics,” but “requires a change in our way of life.”
Sheikh Muhammed Amara: “Islam and Ecology”
Interfaith Climate and Energy Conference
Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development
Jerusalem
Sheikh Muhammed Amara offers an Islamic case for environmental action. He contends that Allah has granted humans an exalted status, yet with that status comes a responsibility to maintain the delicate balance of creation and to respect the rights of other beings. For Sheikh Amara, Muslims have a duty to cooperate with both Muslims and non-Muslims to ensure a safe and flourishing environment for all.
Faraz Khan: “Shariah and Environmental Sustainability”
Wesleyan University
February 20, 2009
Contemporary Issues in environmental ethics based on Islamic paradigm, Faraz Khan discusses the practical Environmental Ethics and a review of major works in this field.
Safei-Eldin Hamed: “Islam and Ecology”
Safei-Eldin Hamed discusses Islam and Ecology with Mary Evelyn Tucker. “Islam and Ecology” is part of the larger “Conversations on World Religions and Ecology” project. Watch the whole “Conversations on World Religions and Ecology” series on the Forum on Religion and Ecology YouTube Channel.
Header photo: Bandir at the annual Maukib procession and celebration for members of Islam's Qadiriyyah tradition in Kano, Nigeria. Courtesy of ARC. ©Darul Qadiriyyah