Our Fingerprints

The Quran speaks of the Day when the earth will "yield up her burdens". She will then "tell her tales". "On that Day", we read, "mankind will issue separately, to be shown their deeds. Whosever has done an atom's weight of good will see it then, and whosoever has done an atom's weight of ill will see it".

It might be said that we leave our fingerprints on everything that we touch, and they remain in place long after we have gone on our way. But this is only one side of the relationship we have with everything around us, a relationship of reciprocity. We are not insulated from our surroundings. We are, so to speak, porous and soak up elements from what ever we see, hear or touch. When we treat the natural world only as an object to be exploited and conquered, we are damaging ourselves. Environmentalists predict that our abuse of the earth will have disastrous consequences for humanity as a whole, but that may be the least of our worries. The consequences are on many different levels; the higher the level, the more deadly they are likely to be. "Work not confusion in the earth after the fair ordering thereof", says the Quran.

The Muslim is assured that the whole earth is a mosque for him. The walled buildings to which he is summoned to prayer are simply a convenience. The fields, the forest and the desert are equally fitting as places of prayer and therefore demand the same respect that is accorded to a conventional mosque. To show respect for everything that God has created is a part of faith, for everything bears the imprint of His hand. The man or woman who stands, bows and prostrates in the midst of nature is a member of a universal congregation, joining in a universal prayer. "All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God", says the Quran.

The beauties of the earth are, the Quran tells us, a "reminder to mankind", a reminder to those who are disposed to remember their origin and their end. For such as these, the natural world sparkles with light. It is not some chance agglomeration of atoms, unrelated to our innermost being. It gives, if we are receptive to the gift, and it receives if we, in our turn, offer it the care which is its right. The objective world around us and our human subjectivity might be compared to two circles which intersect rather than float, separate and divided, independently of each other. This is implicit in the Islamic principle of Tawhid, the Oneness of God and the unbroken unity of all that He has created. It is implicit also in the word "cosmos" (as opposed to "universe", a neutral term that implies nothing. The "cosmos" is, by definition, an ordered and harmonious whole, in which the parts are inter-dependent. "No man is an island", as the poet Donne said, and the human creature - totally dependent on God, but dependent also upon the environment - is for ever in the bonds of need and the net of love.

... Islam, Nature and the Environment by Gai Eaton. Broadcast by BBC on 1996