The Globalization of Muslim Environmentalism

In Islamic Philosophy

From around the tenth century CE Muslim philosophers, familiar with Classical works, appear to have been the ones to coin the Arabic termtabī‘a to represent the Latin and Greek equivalentsnatura andphysis . (The wordtabī‘a does not appear in the Qur’an.) The derivativestab‘ andmatbū‘ may, on the other hand, have been the source of the Latin pairingnatura naturans andnatura naturata .[^2] In Islamic philosophy the distinction between the Creator and Creation is represented by the termshaqq (lit., “Divine Truth”) andkhalq . The laws of the universe exist not in and of themselves but rather as expressions of the Divine will, understood in Aristotelian terms as the First Cause. There are no “secondary” causes; thus, what appear to be the laws of nature are merely the “habits” of created things, which God could alter if he chose. Miracles, accordingly, are seen simply as instances where God chooses to cause things to happen in other than their familiar, habitual manner.

Yet the relationship of the infinite (the Creator) to the finite (Creation) is neither entirely one of immanence (tashbīh ) nor one of transcendence (tanzīh ), since both extremes are incompatible with the ultimate oneness (tawhīd ) of God. Neither can Creation be divine alongside the Creator, nor can there exist separate realities for each; either case would represent a kind of polytheism (shirk ) unacceptable in Islam.

The Muslim philosophers largely followed the Greek model of the cosmos, which they understood to be spherical in shape and bounded by the stellar field. The planets, the Sun and the Moon occupy the middle layers, with the Earth constituting the center. The heavenly world (al-‘ālam al-ā‘la ), though made up of ether in contrast to the lower world (al-‘ālam al-asfāl ) which is comprised of the four elements, shares with it the qualities of heat, cold, moistness and dryness and acts upon it accordingly. The earth’s geography was most often understood in terms of the pre-Islamic Iranian divisions of seven concentric climes (keshvar s), although the fourfold division of the Greeks and the ninefold version of the Indians were also known.

The Islamic philosophers affirm the position of humans near the top within the hierarchy of created beings, below angels but above other animals, plants, and minerals. Humans are the mediators between the heavenly and earthly realms and a major channel for divine grace. The human body, furthermore, is perceived as a microcosm of the universe, with specific parts of the body being identified with parts of the zodiac and thus subject to their influences.

The so-called Pure Brethren of Basra (Ikhwān al-Safā ), in their tenth-century treatises collectively known as theRasā’il , write that the study of nature offers proof of God: “Know that the perfect manufacturing of an object indicates the existence of a wise and perfect artisan even when he is veiled and inaccessible to sense perception. He who meditates upon botanical objects will of necessity know that the beings of this reign issue from a perfect artisan.”[^3] For the Ikhwan, who considered themselves Pythagoreans, numbers were an important means of insight into the ordering of nature. In one section of their treatise the Ikhwan present a fictitious court

case in which non-human animals complain of their treatment by humans. Goodman has drawn attention to the similarity of ecological vision evoked in this tenth-century tract with that of contemporary ecologists.[^4] The Ikhwan were a marginal group, however, and their views should not be taken to represent the mainstream Islamic thought of their time.