Référence :
Lagoonscapes. The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities – Edizioni Ca’ Foscari
English
Environmentalism and sustainability as an expression of Islamic moral orientation
Abstract :
The essay emphasizes cultural specificities, starting with the terminology currently used to describe sustainability, and investigates the lack of homogeneity of the semantic fields belonging respectively to sustainability and istidāma, the first focused on weight and burden, especially material (cf. the Latin sustinēre), and the other instead on duration (the synonyms proposed by medieval lexicologists are in fact: baqiya, thabata, imtadda, intaẓara e raqaba). Drawing on the works of a number of contemporary Arab Muslim intellectuals, my contribution aims to present the environmental sustainability (al-istidāma al-bīʾiyya) from an Islamic perspective, and to address the urgent moral imperative – to ensure the well-being of the present generation without compromising the well-being of future generations – as part of the ethical heritage of the Islamic religion; the authors consulted rely both on the notion of khilāfa, and a revisionist exegesis of the Qur’anic expression fasād fī l-arḍ or “corruption on earth”, which precisely reads the Qur’anic opposition fasād /iṣlāḥ in an ecological key. Other major themes explored in contemporary Islamic environmentalist Arabic literature, through Qur’anic verses and Traditions of the Prophet, include: the role of the sharīʿa in producing environmental awareness (al-waʿī al-bīʾī); and its ability to provide all the guidance necessary to maintain the status quo, with the different methods of conservation and care (ḥifāẓ, riʿāya) of the world, including through the application of general principles of Islamic law (al-qawāʿid al-fiqhiyya).
Titre original : “Environmentalism and sustainability as an expression of Islamic moral orientation”
Résumé non disponible en français.
تسلّط هذه المقالة الضوءَ على الخصائص الثقافية ، بدءًا من المصطلحات المستخدمة حاليًا لوصف الاستدامة. وتبحث في انعدام تجانس الحقول الدلالية الخاصّة بمصطلح sustainability الانجليزي والاستدامة، حيث أنّ الأوّل يشدِّدُ على الوزن والعبء خصوصاً وزن المواد وعبئها (راجع الأصل اللاتيني sustinēre) ، فيما يشدّد الآخر بدلاً من ذلك على الفترة الزمنية (المرادفات التي اقترحها علماء المعاجم في القرون الوسطى هي: البقية، الثباتة، الامتدادة، الانتظارة، الرقابة). تستند مساهمتي على أعمال عدد من المثقّفين العرب المسلمين المعاصرين وتهدف إلى عرض الاستدامة البيئية من منظور إسلامي وإلى معالجة الواجب الأخلاقي الملّح – أيّ ضمان رفاه الجيل الحالي من دون المساس برفاه الأجيال القادمة – كجزء من تراث الدين الإسلامي الأخلاقي. إنّ المؤلّفَين المُستشاريَن يعتمدان كلاهما على مفهوم الخلافة والتفسير التحريفي للتعبير القرآني “فساد في الأرض” الذي يوضّحُ بدقة التضاد القرآني فساد / إصلاح في إطار بيئي. وتشملُ المواضيع الرئيسة الأخرى التي دُرست في الأدب العربي الإسلامي البيئي المعاصر من خلال الآيات القرآنية والتقاليد النبوية: دور الشريعة في توليد الوعي البيئي؛ وقدرتها على تقديم جميع التوجيهات الضرورية للمحافظة على الوضع الراهن بمختلف طرائق الحفاظ على العالم ورعايته، بما في ذلك من خلال تطبيق المبادئ العامة للشريعة الإسلامية (القواعد الفقهية) .
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