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'God Surrounds All Things': An Islamic Perspective on the Environment
| Article
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11040 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1986 |
3,984 Words |
| Author
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William C. Chittick
William C. Chittick teaches religious studies at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook; he is author of The
Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (SUNY,
1983) and The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al'Arabi's
Metaphysics of Imagination (SUNY, 1989). |
In attempting to understand the Islamic view of the environment, we have to begin by asking how Islam has traditionally discussed the concept with which we are dealing. How does one say "environment" in the language of the Koran? What terminology would be used if this were fourteenth century Cairo or Esfahan? No doubt it is possible to translate the word 'environment' in a meaningful way into contemporary languages of the Islamic world, such as Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Urdu, but this is not because the concept as currently understood has always existed in these languages. The reason for this is obvious: Our particular view of the environment has developed along with modern science; even in English it would be difficult to find the term used in its present-day meaning before the nineteenth century. It is fair to say that "the problem of the environment," in which the West is so involved, arose only because of the development of science. If there are also severe environmental problems in certain parts of the Muslim world, this is not because Islamic society is living according to its own ideals and principles; far from it. What has happened is that non-Islamic ways of doing things have been imposed by the circumstances of the past two hundred years; in other words, Western environmental problems have been imported along with Western technology and know-how. Traditional Islam has never before been faced with major man-made ecological disasters or even with the possibility of such, so Islam has never had to frame the kind of concepts concerning the environment with which the West is familiar.
With these prefatory remarks, we turn now to the Koran, the ultimate authority for all Islamic perspectives, and inquire whether any concepts found there indicate how a traditional Muslim would understand the English word 'environment'. An important Koranic expression which corresponds closely to the literal meaning of this term is ihatah, which means 'to surround". In four verses it refers to hell, which is said to surround the unbelievers. Most significant for our purposes is that in a majority of the verses where it occurs it refers to God, who "surrounds the disbeliveers" (2:19). Again: "My Lord surrounds what you are doing?" (11:92); or: "God surrounds all things" (4:126; cf. 41: 54).
It is characteristic of Islamic thought to being any discussion with God, just as every book written by a traditional Muslim begins with the phrase, 'In the Name of God, the All Merciful, the All-Compassionate." The foundation of all Islamic ways of looking at things is, in a nutshell, the first shahadah or "testimony of faith": "There is no god but God." Everything else hangs upon this statement, which is the single fact about which
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