Protecting the environment and preserving ecosystems
It is a matter of perspective, but the ultimate perfection in nature is displayed in the way it has been initially fashioned.
Any outside intervention results in corruption and a disruption of the ecosystem.
Such intervention has a negative effect on our part as well. It jeopardizes our future and the future of the world.
Consider the example of the Amazon River, so overcome with pollution that cleaning it up is nearly impossible.
It may have been that such examples have pushed people to take precautions regarding the Mississippi River, Niagara Falls and such. We cannot know the extent of these precautions.
Some places are more successful in taking precautions and putting things in order while other places are not that fortunate.
Our seas are being polluted, filling up with waste. Our forests are set on fire, by accident at the hands of people.
Nowadays, we have at least come to realize how important those trees are for our own breathing, how they are literally "the lungs of our earth".
Such understanding has only come about in recent years. I'm sure experts on these issues would be able to express these concerns in a much more professional, effective way. These topics are not my expertise.
Nonetheless, essentially, the crucial matter at hand is that, though the Qur’an has not used terminology such as environmentalism, or ecosystem or [Mother] Nature.
But many phenomena and beauties found in the universe have been highlighted and brought to our attention.
The Qur’an points to them as ideal forms. And human beings have been directed to build their worlds according to the ideal that has been set before them.
In other words, while we are told of the universe with its mountains, rocks and trees, the earth and the skies, the rain that falls from the sky, the plants shooting out of the ground and the trees bearing their fruits, and the connection of each of them with our own lives, we are also called on to design our own worldly lives according to the ideals that have been presented before us.
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