Knowledge and Cosmic Sustainability in Contemporary Islam: From Environmental Ethics to a Green Knowledge Culture

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 36 Sayı: 3, 699 - 721, 31.12.2025

Asfa Widiyanto

https://doi.org/10.26650/di.2025.36.3.1651778

https://izlik.org/JA77KN86CS

Öz

Cosmic sustainability is an evolving discourse among present-day religions, including Islam. In the contemporary Islamic tradition, one may observe a growing consciousness towards environmental sustainability. It recognises the right of material nature to cohabit with human beings, marking a potential for Muslim communities to contribute to environmental conservation. This perspective highlights the importance of recognising the interdependence of divine, human and cosmic realities, as well as the necessity of environmental care within religious traditions. Hence, Islam is concerned with the human common good (masalih al-nas) and the cosmic common good (masalih al-‘alam). Such an inclination and obligation towards environmental sustainability are extremely sought after in today’s world to mitigate the climate crisis. There have been some efforts among Muslim scholars to develop Islamic environmental ethics; however, the elaboration of green knowledge is still limited. This study investigates the dynamic interplay between Islam, knowledge culture, and the cosmic common good. Most specifically, it addresses two interconnected research problems: (a) How is environmental ethics elaborated among contemporary Muslim scholars? (b) How can Muslims’ commitment towards environmental protection be developed into a green knowledge culture? This paper argues that the contribution of Muslim communities to ecological sustainability will become greater if the commitment to addressing the environmental crisis is transformed not only into ‘environmental ethics’ but also into a ‘green knowledge culture’. This ‘green knowledge culture” will help Muslims develop a culture of knowledge production and application that is friendly towards the environment.

Anahtar Kelimeler

green knowledge culture , environmental ethics , cosmic common good , climate crisis , contemporary Islam

Kaynakça

• Abedi-Sarvestani, A., and Mansoor Shahvali, “Environmental ethics: Towards an Islamic perspective,” American-Eurasian Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences 3.4 (2008), 609-617.Adler, Alfred. Yaşamanın Anlam ve Amacı, 4. Basım, çeviren Kamuran Şipal. Ankara: Say Yayınları, 1998. google scholar 
• Abedi-Sarvestani, A., and Mansoor Shahvali, “Environmental ethics: Towards an Islamic perspective,” American-Eurasian Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences 3.4 (2008), 609-617. google scholar 
• Agadjanian Alexander, and Santosh C. Saha, “Religion between universal and particular: Eastern Europe after 1989.” Religious Fundamentalism in the Contemporary World: Critical Social and Political Issues, (Lexington : Lexington Books, 2004): 71-90.google scholar 
• Agamben, Giorgio, homo Sacer: Sovereignty and life, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998) google scholar 
• Alawi, Abdullah, “Muktamar 1994 dan Jihad Lingkungan Hidup.” 11 December 2015, Nuonline. accessed 25 February 2025, https://www.nu.or.id/fragmen/muktamar-1994-dan-jihad-lingkungan-hidup-EkV9O google scholar 
• Ansari, Shaykh Ibrahim, Getting out of the Way, (New York: Ansari Publications, 2010). google scholar 
• Arthur, Justice Anquandah. “The dynamics of religion in public spheres: religious education and religious diversity in Ghana’s public schools.” IJoReSH: Indonesian Journal of Religion, Spirituality, and Humanity 3, no. 2 (2024): 152-172. google scholar 
• Auda, Jasser, Maqasid al-Shariah: An introductory guide (Herndon: International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), 2008). google scholar 
• Bakar, Osman, “Islamic civilisation as a global presence with special reference to its knowledge culture.” ICR Journal 4.4 (2013), 512-528. google scholar 
• Beringer, Almut, “Reclaiming a Sacred Cosmology: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the Perennial Philosophy, and Sustainability Education.” Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE) (2006): 26-42. google scholar 
• Bratton, Susan Power, “Eco-dimensionality as a religious foundation for sustainability.” Sustainability 10.4 (2018), 1021. google scholar 
• Buchanan, David, David Boddy, and James McCalman, “Getting in, getting on, getting out, and getting back.” Doing Research in Organisations (RLE: Organisations), London: Routledge, 2013). 53-67.google scholar 
• Conca, Ken. “Rethinking the ecology-sovereignty debate.” Green Planet Blues, (London: Routledge, 2018), 96-106 google scholar 
• Darmalaksana, Wahyudin. “Kebijakan penanggulangan sampah Kota Bandung: Prespektif Fiqih Lingkungan,” (2019), accessed 25 February 2025, https://digilib.uinsgd.ac.id/5229/1/Kebijakan%20Penanggulangan%20Sampah.pdf. google scholar 
• Foltz, R. C., Environmentalism in the Muslim World, (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2005). google scholar 
• Gade, Anna M, “Tradition and Sentiment in Indonesian Environmental Islam.” Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology 16.3 (2012): 263-285.google scholar 
• Gade, Anna M. “Smoke, fire, and rain in Muslim Southeast Asia: Environmental ethics in the time of burning,” Piety, politics, and everyday ethics in Southeast Asian Islam: Beautiful behavior’ (London: Bloomsbury, 2018): 169-188 google scholar 
• Ganiel, Gladys, Heidemarie Winkel, and Christophe Monnot, “Religion in times of crisis.” Religion in Times of Crisis (Leiden: Brill, 2014): 1-7. google scholar 
• Gerten, Dieter, and Sigurd Bergmann, “Facing the human faces of climate change,” Religion in environmental and climate change: Suffering, values, lifestyles, (London: Continuum, 2012): 3-15. google scholar 
• Gulzar, A., et al, “Environmental ethics towards the sustainable development in Islamic perspective: A Brief Review,” Ethnobotany Research and Applications 22 (2021): 1-10. google scholar 
• Humphreys, Rebekah, “Suffering, sentientism, and sustainability: An analysis of a non-anthropocentric moral framework for climate ethics.” Climate change ethics and the non-human world (London: Routledge, 2020): 49-62. google scholar 
• Jamison, A. (2001). The making of green knowledge: Environmental politics and cultural transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2001). google scholar 
• Jamison, Andrew., “The making of green knowledge: the contribution from activism.” Futures 35.7 (2003): 703-716. google scholar 
• Khalid, Fazlun, “Islam and the environment–ethics and practice an assessment.” Religion Compass 4.11 (2010): 707-716. google scholar 
• Lebens, Samuel, “Metaphysics, Epistemology and Theology.” The Routledge Companion to Jewish Philosophy (2025). google scholar 
• Lohmann, Friedrich, “Climate Justice and the Intrinsic Value of Creation: The Christian Understanding of Creation and its Holistic Implications,” Religion in Environmental and Climate Change: Suffering, Values, Lifestyles (London: Continuum, 2012): 85-106.google scholar 
• Lucht, Wolfgang, D. Gerten, and S. Bergmann, “Global Change and the Need for New Cosmologies,” Religion in Environmental and Climate Change. Suffering, Values, Lifestyles (London: Continuum, 2012): 16-31.google scholar 
• Maulana, Abdullah Muslich Rizal, Linda Alfionita, Yuangga Kurnia Yahya, and Syamsul Hadi Untung. “Anthropocentrism in Christian eco-theology: origin and debate.” IJoReSH: Indonesian Journal of Religion, Spirituality, and Humanity 3, no. 2 (2024), 197-220.google scholar 
• Masse, Rahman Ambo, “Konsep Mudharabah Antara Kajian Fiqh dan Penerapan Perbankan.” DIKTUM: Jurnal Syariah dan Hukum 8.1 (2010): 77-85. google scholar 
• McCarthy, E. Doyle, Knowledge as culture: The new sociology of knowledge (London: Routledge, 2005).google scholar 
• Mohamed, Najma, “Islamic education, eco-ethics and community,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 33 (2014): 315-328. google scholar 
• Mohamed, Najma, “Revitalising an eco-justice ethic of Islam by way of environmental education: Implications for Islamic education.” Diss. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, 2012. google scholar 
• Moosa, Ebrahim, “On Reading Shāṭibī in Rabat and Tunis.” Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought: An Examination (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014): 177-192. google scholar 
• Mufid, Moh. “Green Fatwas in Bahtsul Masāil: Nahdlatul Ulama’s Response to the Discourse on the Environmental Crisis in Indonesia,” AL-IHKAM: Jurnal Hukum & Pranata Sosial 15.2 (2020): 173-200. google scholar 
• Naseef, Abdullah Omar, “The Muslim Declaration on Nature,” Islam and the Environment. (London: Ta-ha Publishers, 1998). google scholar 
• Nasr, S. H., Knowledge and the Sacred: Revisioning Academic Accountability. (Albany: Suny Press, 1989): 5-8 google scholar 
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, An introduction to Islamic cosmological doctrines (New York: State University of New York Press, 1993). google scholar 
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Religion and the Order of Nature, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). google scholar 
• Nolt, John, “Nonanthropocentric climate ethics,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 2.5 (2011), 701-711 google scholar 
• Reder, Michael, “Religion in the public sphere: The social function of religion in the context of climate and development policy,” Religion in environmental and climate change: Suffering, values, lifestyles (London: Continuum, 2012): 32-45. google scholar 
• Regan, Tom, The case for animal rights, (California: Univ of California Press, 2004). google scholar 
• Reuter, Thomas A, “The green revolution in the world’s religions: Indonesian examples in international comparison,” Religions 6.4 (2015): 1217-1231. google scholar 
• Romdloni, Muhammad Afwan, and Muhammad Sukron Djazilan. “Kiai dan Lingkungan Hidup; Revitalisasi Krisis Ekologis Berbasis Nilai Keagamaan di Indonesia.” Journal of Islamic Civilisation 1.2 (2019): 119-129. google scholar 
• Salam, Misbahus, “Beberapa Konsep Pengelolaan dalam Fiqih Islam”, Fiqih Lingkungan (Fiqih al-Bi’ah), (Jakarta: Conservation Indonesia International, 2006).google scholar 
• Sanders, Jennifer Epley, “Muslim perspectives and the politics of climate change,” Environmental philosophy, politics, and policy (2021): 69-90. google scholar 
• Saniotis, Arthur, “Muslims and ecology: fostering Islamic environmental ethics,” Contemporary Islam 6.2 (2012): 155-171. google scholar 
• Scheid, Daniel P. The cosmic common good: religious grounds for ecological ethics (Oxford University Press, 2015). google scholar 
• Singer, Peter, “Animal liberation.” Ethics: Contemporary Readings, (London: Routledge, 2004), 284-292. google scholar 
• Schönfeld, Martin, “The future of faith: climate change and the fate of religions.” Religion in environmental and climate change: Suffering, values, lifestyles (London: Continuum, 2012): 152-172. google scholar 
• Tallis, Benjamin, “Living in Post-truth: Power/Knowledge/Responsibility,” New Perspectives 24.1 (2016): 7-18. google scholar 
• Tim Lembaga Bahtsul Masail NU, “Fiqih Penanggulangan Sampah Plastik,” accessed 25 February 2025, http://lpbi-nu.org/fikih-penanggulangan-sampah-plastik/ google scholar 
• Vogt, Markus, “Climate Justice from a Christian Point of View: Challenges for a New Definition of Wealth,” Religion in Environmental and Climate Change. Suffering, Values, Lifestyles (London: Continuum, 2012): 69-83. google scholar 
• Wijsen, Frans J. S., Zainal Abidin Bagir, Mohamad Yusuf, Samsul Ma’arif, and Any Marsiyanti. “Humans and Nature: Does Religion Make a Difference in Indonesia?” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 1 (2023): 30-55. google scholar