The Environmental Dimensions of Islam By Mawil Izzi Dien (Cambridge: The Luttenvorth Press, 2000. 190 pages.)

Abstract

Dr. Mawil Izzi Dien, Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of
Wales, has been writing about Islam and environmental issues for almost
two decades. The Environmental Dimensions of Islam is a summary of his
previous writings presented together with new additions. Izzi Dien is one
of the most prominent scholars in the new discourse of Islamic ecotheology,
although he himself seldom refers to other Muslim scholars in this field,
which somehow gives the wrong impression that he is the only one among
Muslims dealing with environmental issues.
After a short introductory chapter, Izzi Dien discusses in chapter 2
"The Environment and Its Components in Islam." This chapter gives an
informative introduction to Qur'anic terminology on various environmental
components and their status in Islam, such as water, earth, living organisms,
diversity and biogeological cycles.
This Qur'anic terminology is further developed in chapter 3, deaLing
with theology pertaining to the environment. This chapter deals with issues
such as the question of creation and the unseen and the Divine origin of
everything: constancy, comprehensiveness, balance, and universal laws in
nature as the Creation. I sympathize with much of the argument presented
regarding the role of human beings in Creation, i.e., their trusteeship, partnership
and responsibility. This chapter would have been strengthened by a
discussion of the accusations from the environmental movement that the
monotheistic religions represent an anthropocentric, and thus problematic,
view of nature. For instance, the idea expressed in the Qur'an that God made
nature subservient ????·akhkhara) to human beings may be criticized (see
Qur'anic verses 2:29; 45:12-13; and 14:33-34), but the author chooses not
to discuss this concept at all or to refer to other scholars' criticisms.
Another problem is his unusual definition of positivism, a philosophy
held accountable for promoting a hegemonic position of science associated
with a problematic view of nature. He sees positivism as something that
Islam promotes, as in his view, it implies that human beings "are an active,
positive force placed on this earth to construct, improve, and reform it." ln
the Qur'an we read about examples of how people who destroyed their own
habitat were punished by God in the form of ecocatastrophes ...