Islamic Environmental Stewardship: Nature and Science in the Light of Islamic Philosophy

A Cosmic Book

Embodied throughout the cosmos are messages concerning all orders of reality. They have significance for all kinds of knowledge, from that regarding the superficially physical to the metaphysically ontological. All such messages allude to God, His qualities and His supreme oneness. They are the Signs of God (Ayātu Llah ) -shown for people with specific characteristics, such as those who contemplate and seek a greater kind of knowledge.12

Within humanity’s surroundings: the Sun seemingly rises from East to West; in the Northern Hemisphere, moss is typically more abundant on the northern side of trees; night and day reiterate the juxtaposed locations of Sun and Earth... With so many natural compasses in humanity’s surroundings, guidance and direction seem abundantly available. Though, perhaps if people saw with other than just two eyes, they would find guidance towards more than just physiographic location. All such embodiments of messages constitute Signs of God-available to people for their pursuit of knowledge concerning reality of both physical and metaphysical domains. Such domains of reality, throughout their hierarchies, allude to God the Real (Allah al-Ḥaqq) and to the many other characteristics of God.

Nature itself is permeated with the Signs of God. A single snowflake is of no threat whatsoever to a human being, but in the unity of snowflakes - a snowstorm - humans flee for shelter; in this is an allusion to the power of unity. It is always darkest before dawn; in this is an analogy to the law of ease following difficulty.

Cyclically, land dies and is revived by means of rain from the heavens, and in time it dies again and is again revived; in this is an allusion to resurrection and a portrayal of the power of God as the Giver of Life and the Bestower of Death (Allah al-Muḥyi al-Mumīt ). All such natural phenomena are regarded as Signs of God; however, such signs can be understood in many deeper levels than that of the simple examples just noted.

In what is understood as a reference to a cosmic holy book, such signs within the cosmos share the same terminology as Qur’anic verses. More specifically, the Arabic word used in reference to Qur’anic verses, “Ayāt,” is the very same term used in reference to signs within the cosmos and within people. Thus, the signs within nature are regarded as verses of a cosmic or natural holy book, and thus nature itself a holy book-or more specifically, the cosmic “Qur’an of creation” (al-Qur’an al-takwīnī ).13 Hence, with the realization that holy verses are not just available in scripture-but in nature, the cosmos and the soul as well-it is humanity’s responsibility to generally approach nature with the same reverence it would a holy book.

Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, and the ships that run in the sea with that which profits men, and the water that God sends down from the cloud, then gives life with it to the earth after its death and spreads in it all animals, and the changing of the winds and the clouds made subservient

between the heaven and the earth, there are signs for a people who understand. 14