Introducing Forty Green Hadith: Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ on Environmental Justice & Sustainability! Download the Forty Green Hadith ebook now: tiny.cc/40greenhadith
By: Imam Safet A. Catovic
40 Green Hadith: Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad on Environmental Justice and Sustainability, compiled by these emerging young Muslim environmental activists and leaders, Kori Majeed and Saarah Yasmin Latif, is a timely and welcome addition to the important on-going work of developing “green” Muslim attitudes and practices by rooting them in these eco-conscious teachings of the Quran and the ecofriendly practices of the life example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
This endeavor is in keeping with a long and well-established Islamic scholarly practice of compiling forty Hadith of the Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him) on various subject matters. This scholarly endeavor over the ages has been driven, in general, by the Prophetic instruction to his companions, “Let the one present among you convey to the absent" and specifcally what has been related from the Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him) through numerous chains of narration and varied narrated texts, including, “Whoever preserves for my nation forty hadith concerning its religion – Allah will resurrect him (or her) on the Day of Resurrection among the jurists and scholars.” In another narration it says, “...Allah will resurrect him (or her) as a jurist and scholar,” and in another, “...I will be for him on the Day of Resurrection an intercessor and a witness.”
The current global climate crisis is primarily due to what “the hands of men have wrought”4: anthropogenic activities driven by the soaring arrogance of conspicuous consumption and the insatiable corporate greed of the few, fueled by the burning of fossil fuels supplied by the extractive fossil fuel industry which puts profts above people. The climate emergency is now upon us, an existential threat to all life on our planet, all this at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable of our human family. Those who contribute the least to global warming yet pay the highest price in terms of its devastating efects and harms.
Highlighting the eco-teachings of Islam, especially through the teachings and beautiful life example (uswaten hasana) of the Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him), who is called by Allah in the Quran a “mercy to all the worlds” (rahmaten lil alaameen), is of great beneft to both Muslims and peoples of other faiths as we seek to fnd ways to work together and seek to modify and “green” our attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyle choices that are integral to tackling climate change and securing a just, viable and sustainable future for our coming generations and all life on our planet Earth.
