Elif Car
It’s no secret that we, humans, don’t know how to admire our planet and everything that goes with it. Or at least not all the time. Climate change can have serious consequences for humanity, such as floods, extreme temperatures, earthquakes, and so on.
So it’s up to us to bring this to a stop. Climate change is a real problem nowadays. What is more beautiful than people working together to do something about it?
On August 15th, twenty top academics, including Muslims and non-Muslims presented the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change in Istanbul after they put their heads together for months. It’s basically a wake up call. The declaration doesn’t only call Muslim countries, but “people of all nations and their leaders” to do something and fight this problem together.
The symposium was a meeting where international policy makers, academics and leaders of faith groups discussed this huge problem. But it also provided opportunities to connect with leaders from other faiths as well as secular organizations, and promote inter-faith and cross-movement cooperation, as mentioned on the main site.
Again, these actions mean in any way that we don’t need to follow the exact same religion or any religion for that matter to bring some awareness in our life. We’re all human beings and we can work together for a better world and future.
The declaration is also a very urgent request to several oil-rich Arab countries to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses, which are without doubt the main cause of climate change and most importantly, to support neighbouring countries with projects on this area.
It also mentions Muhammads (pbuh) life. He obviously didn’t live during the industrial capitalism but he did know how to live harmoniously with the world and its beautiful nature. The declaration convenes Muslims to use his behavior as a guide to go back to that harmony as it cites examples of his lifestyle.
The declarations ends with a beautiful quote of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w):
“The world is sweet and verdant, and verily Allah has made you stewards in it, and He sees how you acquit yourselves.”
