A religious nature: Philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr on Islam and the environment

Abstract

In this interview, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a university professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, talks with the Bulletin’s Elisabeth Eaves about Islam and the environment. Nasr turned to philosophy after first studying physics as an undergraduate, and began writing on environmental issues in the 1960s. He describes how both the Koran, Islam’s holy book, and the hadith, the recorded ways and sayings of Mohammed, make references to the need to protect nature. The Koranic verse most often cited on the environment, he says, is the one in which God chooses man as his khalifa, meaning “vice-regent,” making him the guardian of God’s creation. In Muslim countries, Nasr says, it’s mostly individuals and nongovernmental organizations that push environmental issues, rather than political or religious leaders. He observes that attitudes to water use are shaped by a dry climate, whether in Saudi Arabia or California, and relates how his recent trip to the Vatican came about.

Nearly 50 years ago, Islamic philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr published The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. Like conservationist Rachel Carson and historian Lynn White, who both wrote in the same era, Nasr identified an incipient environmental crisis afflicting the globe. In the decades since, he has written extensively on religion, science, and the environment, penning some 50 books. Today, at 82, he is a university professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University.

Nasr studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—where he was the first Iranian student admitted as an undergraduate—before turning his attention to philosophy. He earned a master’s degree in geology and geophysics and a doctorate in the history of science at Harvard University. He returned to Iran, where he embarked on a distinguished academic career, but left again for the United States at the time of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In 2007, Nasr was one of 138 Muslim thinkers to sign “A Common Word Between Us and You,” a letter addressed to Christian leaders that became the basis for ongoing Muslim-Christian dialogue.

Nasr’s own view is that reawakening a sacred concern for nature is required to halt global environmental degradation. “Islam is not only for human beings,” he said in a 2014 lecture. “It is a cosmic reality; all creatures participate in Islam.”

In this interview with the Bulletin, Nasr talked about what the Koran says on the environment, attitudes to climate change in Muslim countries, and leading a delegation to the Vatican, among other subjects.

BAS: What does Islam’s holy book, the Koran, say about environmental stewardship?

Nasr: There are many Koranic verses which refer to nature as part of the Islamic revelation itself. One says that the sun and moon prostrate themselves before God; so there is a sense of religion as permeating the cosmos. Sometimes God swears by fruits—like the olive, the date, and so forth. God speaks to the mountains, the streams, and the stars.

The verse of the Koran that contemporary thinkers in the Islamic world dealing with the environment refer to over and over again is the one in which God chooses the human being as his khalifa: “We place man upon the earth as vice-regent.” The most outward political meaning of khalifa is “the person who rules over the Islamic world,” but that’s only one of its meanings. The real meaning is vice-regent, representative, someone who fulfills the function of someone else. That’s what khalifa means in the deepest sense. Since God is the creator and protector and preserver of his creation, by virtue of being God’s khalifa, humans must fulfill that function here on Earth. And so the human is the guardian of God’s creation.

As for the hadith—the sayings of the Prophet—there are numerous ones about how to treat animals well, how not to cut trees, how not to waste water, etc. It is forbidden to cut fruit-bearing trees. There are all kinds of hadiths that have a direct environmental bearing.

BAS: Is the Islamic view of the environment unique as compared to other religions, or is it quite similar to the other monotheistic faiths?

Nasr: The Koran refers much more to the natural world than the sacred scriptures of earlier monotheisms. Of course, theologically, there are many similarities, but the emphasis in Islam on the spread of revelation to the whole of God’s creation is unique in the Abrahamic family.

The concept of barakah is very, very important. It can be translated as “grace.” In Islam, barakah flows through the arteries of the universe; it is a flow of grace within God’s creation. In this sense, yes, Islam is unique. In other senses, there are many Islamic formulations of nature which are similar to those in Christianity and Judaism, as well as to those in Hinduism and Taoism.

BAS: Is it possible to generalize about how environmentalism ranks as an issue for Muslims today?

Nasr: Let me start with this prelude. For a long time, environmentalism was not taken seriously by practically any non-Western nation because they could make the argument that the West was colonizing them, robbing them of their primary resources, becoming very rich as a result, and didn’t give a darn about the environment.

Then, non-Western nations began saying that it was their turn to industrialize and become wealthy and so forth. These nations therefore said that taking care of the environment was a Western problem—the West created it and so should treat it.

This was the attitude until a few decades ago, and it was not unique to Islam. You could find the same attitude in India, among Hindus and Buddhists and so forth, and in China where there is Taoism and Confucianism.

Under communism, too, nobody accepted the idea of the environmental crisis. It was a thesis in communist countries that this was a capitalistic problem. Of course, they discovered the tremendous environmental catastrophes of the Soviet Union once it fell apart, but I will not go into that matter here.

In all Islamic countries, attention to the environment is a recent phenomenon as far as government policy is concerned. Moreover, in a lot of countries, it’s the nongovernmental organizations and the private groups that are now doing the most important work. Iran was one of the first countries in Asia to establish national parks, which it did before the revolution, so in some cases governments did have a role but it was not widespread.

BAS: What about the typical voter or member of the public?

Nasr: In Muslim countries, the public mostly thinks of environmental issues from the point of view of, say, not throwing garbage in the street, or not cutting the trees in the park in the middle of Tehran or Cairo, or things like that. Most of the public is not really aware of the deeper environmental issues.

BAS: Besides yourself, who are some leaders in the global Islamic community who are speaking out on climate change or other environmental issues?

Nasr: There’s no doubt that the voices are increasing in number. Sheikh Ahmed Kuftaro was the Grand Mufti of Syria; he died before these catastrophes occurred in his country. He was a remarkable man who was very much interested in other religions and espoused friendship with Christianity and Judaism. He was also very interested in nature and the environment—just like Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Church, who is called the “Green Patriarch.” There are some others. A woman named Masoumeh Ebtekar, a vice president of Iran, has been working very hard on the issue. And there are scholars such as Fazlun Khalid [founder of the UK-based Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences].

But right now there are really no major religious or political leaders who are known for espousing the cause. It’s mostly individuals, professors, scholars, sometimes even engineers and others who are working in environmental organizations in the Islamic world.

BAS: The pope is issuing guidance on combating climate change that could have a powerful effect on Catholics. Do you see it as possible that one or more Islamic leaders could come together to have that kind of impact?

Nasr: In the Islamic world, there’s not a centralized hierarchy as there is in Catholicism. What will happen and what is happening is through the writings of individuals. Now there is a younger generation of people who are writing about it, but they’re not necessarily politically or ecclesiastically powerful.

BAS: Islam was founded in a dry, desert environment. How does that affect Muslim attitudes toward protecting nature and water?

Nasr: Water is mentioned in the Koran in a very special way: It is from water that all life has come. Water was always very precious, and the preservation of water was one of the great achievements of classic Islamic civilization. In the qanat system—the ancient water-supply system—water flowed underground so it did not evaporate until it reached towns down the valley. Islamic civilization introduced some incredible technological innovations precisely because water was so scarce and such an important commodity.

The late philosopher Ivan Illich once said that if the whole world had Western toilets, the world’s water system would collapse. This sort of attitude—using water without even thinking about how much you use—was not in the mentality of traditional Islamic culture.

It’s like what is happening in California right now: If this drought continues for another 10, 20 years, people will have a complete change of attitude about water and grass and showering and washing your hands and everything else.

BAS: Looking at modern Muslim countries around the world, do you see a strong difference in views on climate change?

Nasr: To some extent. For example, in Bangladesh, when the floods come they say it is due to climate change. But so many people in the West are climate change deniers, including some scientists who may have been co-opted by the deniers in the United States. Many governments in the Islamic world take recourse through these deniers. They present this doubt as a reason not to act on anything that threatens what they consider the economic program for their countries.

In countries that are oil-producing, like Saudi Arabia, of course they don’t want to think about the issue, although paradoxically, even in Saudi Arabia, there’s now an interesting environmental movement led mostly by women. There are a number of women there who are writing on the Internet, producing pamphlets and books, and giving talks about the question of the environment and the preservation of trees and water and so on. And it’s having some impact—not very much, but at least some impact. At least it’s being heard for the first time.

BAS: Is there collaboration between the Islamic community and other faiths on environmental issues?

Nasr: There have been a number of Muslims who have participated with Christians and Jews in common environmental concerns. In November, I led the Islamic delegation to the Vatican, and we met with Cardinal [Jean-Louis] Tauran under the aegis of [the interfaith initiative] A Common Word. One of the issues that we discussed was cooperation between Muslims and Catholics on environmental issues that have a social impact. I don’t mean changing a river’s course in Siberia or something like that, but on issues in countries where the two religions are present.

BAS: Can you tell us more about A Common Word?

Nasr: When Benedict XVI became pope, he gave a talk in Germany in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor criticizing Islam very severely in the worst possible language. It caused a stir in the Islamic world, and some people were even killed in ensuing riots. But instead of attacking Catholicism or anything like that, a number of people contacted me. We—138 Muslim leaders—decided to create a document called “A Common Word” to show common concerns shared by Christianity and Islam, and we sent this document to all the different Christian denominations—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, everything.

A tremendous response came from all groups except the Catholics. But the Catholics came in the end, and it was they whom we were addressing most of all. A number of meetings began to be held in the Vatican, led by some of the leading Islamic scholars as well as cardinals, monsignors, and Pope Benedict himself. I spoke on behalf of the Muslims.

When Pope Francis became pope, he wanted to revive this process. And so we went to Rome again last November. I again led the Muslim delegation, and Cardinal Tauran led the Catholic delegation. We discussed various issues, of course, but this time one of the important ones was the environment.

BAS: As a young man, you studied science. Later you turned your focus to studying religion and philosophy. What made you shift?

Nasr: I was a very good student in mathematics and physics when I was in private school in the United States, so I went to MIT. Everybody said I ought to study physics. And I felt that in studying physics, I would discover the nature of reality, at least physical reality. I soon discovered that in fact modern physics does not deal with the nature of physical reality, but with mathematical structures alone. And so I was really quite put off, because I was in search of the truth. I was looking for it, but truth didn’t have any meaning in the modern philosophy of science. It was a category no longer in use.

This put me in a deep spiritual and philosophical crisis. I began to read about Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy, religion, and mysticism while I continued to study at MIT, and in the end I decided I didn’t want to be a physicist. I turned to the study of philosophy and the history of science and tried to understand why it was that a purely materialistic science developed in the West as it did.