- FIRST KHUTBA
Bismillāhi’l-Raḥmāni’l-Raḥīm.
Ittaqu’Llah!
O You who believe,– Be aware of Allah, with correct awareness, an awe-inspired awareness, and die not except as Muslims.
Brothers and sisters,
In conjunction with the Earth Day that is to be celebrated by the inhabitants of the earth, let us recall and contemplate on why these issues such as climate change, global warming, environmental sustainability, rising sea level, thinning of the ozone layer, and some others have been surfaced so much nowadays.
Let us get back to the verse “ẓahara al-fasād fil-barri wal-baḥri bi mā kasabat aydī al-nās” (30:41) – which means “Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned”. We Muslims have earlier on been warned that mischiefs would only be done through the hands of men, because we are indeed unjust and foolish! – innahu kāna ẓalūman jahūla (33:72).
Ironically, we can safely presume that most of the ones that are celebrating this event are from those coming from non-Muslim countries, or non-Muslim worldviews. We can list a plenty of reasons to why this phenomena took place and it amaze not anybody as the Western people were seen to be more civilized in perceiving these kinds of issue.
One of the reasons of this phenomena is that we have no longer understand the real concept of “ādāb” that we had rather reduced its meaning into a mere etiquette– which is only as a set of behaviour that a society does– and not as an embodied process of recognition and acknowledgment of a proper places of thing as a whole. This means that in order to implement Adab, acquiring proper knowledge is an utmost requirement. And we failed to understand that every conduct in everyday life has its proper adab to be fulfilled.
Beloved brothers and sisters,
In this particular khutba, we want to focus on the Adab towards the Earth.
O the people of the world, have we come to realize that we are already being punished by the nature for what we have done to them? Have we not come to feel worried about the nature that is reacting negatively against us which causes unpleasantness to our lives and health? Or are we still going to live in denial and wait for something worse and more terrifying to happen that can make us come to our senses? Is it not obvious enough now?
Every single segments of the society must have affected by the destruction of the nature by now. We can witness them by our very eyes to see how our river in IIUM has changed to be really nasty and no longer a breathtaking scenery for anyone anymore. Plus, not only it is awful to the eyes, but it has also severe effects on our health especially to the ecosystem of the environment we live in.
Allah said in the Quran: innā kulla shay’in khalaqnāhu bi qadar– “Verily, all things have We created in proportion and measure” (54:49). Thus the ecosystem has also its measures and proportions, which implies that when one component in the structure is dislocated, surely it will disrupt the whole structure itself. Therefore, when one component in the ecosystem is polluted– which in this case is the river– hence we should expect more components in the ecosystem to be disrupted as well, such as the food chain, the forest as animal habitats, the raining system, the temperature balance, and others.
Blessed brothers and sisters,
These happened due to our insensitivity towards the earth being used excessively, disguised under the name of “development” and “progress”. Each and every one of us plays a significant role in ensuring our environment prevented from being treated injustice. Begin with our own available role to signal out our concerns.
Act on every levels of availability, be it individually such as proper waste disposals; or societally such as petitioning to local authorities on transgressive industrial site causing pollution; or influentially such as spreading around the awareness; or politically such as rule out policies for certain circumstances to be followed, or others.
The point is, we have to act on this together. We need to save the environment, we need to save our river, together! In sha Allah.
- SECOND KHUTBA
Bismillāhi’l-Raḥmāni’l-Raḥīm.
Subḥāna’Llāh wal-ḥamdu li’Llāhi wa lā ilāha illa Allāh wa’Llāhu akbar wa lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā bi’Llāhi al-‘aliyyi al-aẓīm.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Allah said in the Qur’an: Qul hal yastawī’l-ladhīna ya‘lamūna wa’l-ladhīna lā ya‘lamūn (30:9) “Say, ‘Are those equal, those who know and those who do not know?’.” Allah has stressed on the importance of knowledge in the Qur’an. From this, surely there are differences of the actions made by those who know, than those who do not know. That is why we must begin by seeking knowledge in order to know whether we are doing the right thing or not.
To save the environment, we must equip ourselves with the proper understanding on what “ādāb” towards the earth means. In simple words, Adab towards the earth is to act naturally on the nature. Nature is meant to be nature. It is no longer natural when we impose alien things in the process, or coercing the process to be in accordance to what we want it to be; such as adding chemical solutions or mixture in order to hasten or shorten the process, or anything that is not natural. The urge of mass production these days has driven the world to reap the results in an unnatural way that primarily causes injustice towards the nature.
Modern science has transgressed the limits when it goes further to manipulate natural processes such as modifying genetics, impose unnatural experiments on nature by taking out animals and plants from its habitat, introduce unnatural quality control processes, mass industrial farming, poison-based industrial agriculture, and others that eventually caused disruptions on the components in the ecosystem.
Same goes to the process of taking out logs and timber from the woods, clearing up the mountains and hills for development purposes, desertification, coral bleaching, tree death, topsoil erosion, habitat destruction, irreversible loss of biodiversity, toxic and radioactive waste, swaths of disappearing rainforests, dead rivers, lakes and seas, increasing slag heaps and quarry pits; there is so much injustice occurred in the earth that we do not aware anymore of our moral obligation towards the earth. We have loss the Adab towards the earth.
Therefore, let us recall in this blessed Jumuah mubarakah, on our huge responsibility and burden that was charged upon us as the Khalifah of the earth. Let us re-introduce the proper way of dealing with nature in our daily syllabuses and discourses, especially in our current commercialized and industrialized system. Let us re-know that the balance of the ecosystem is our responsibility, and we are to be held accountable for mischiefs and mismanagement of the earth.
May Allah forgive us for our weaknesses and foolishness in this world. May Allah guide us the way to repair and recompense our faults, so that we could bring back Rahmat and blessings to the whole universe. Amin!
Wa mā arsalnāka illā raḥmatan lil ‘ālamīn, (21:107) “We sent you not, but as a mercy for all creatures.”
* This Khutba was prepared for an Earth Day environmental awareness competition at IIUM.
BELAJAR DARI ALAM 