planners in Saudi Arabia, engaged with their counterparts in Indonesia who were led by people of the calibre of Ahsin Sakho Muhammad the Rector of Institute of Qur'anic Sciences and Prof.
Tengku Muslim Ibrahim the Chairman of the Assembly of Islamic Scholars (MPU) in Aceh. This colloquium was the result of a collaboration between the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and
Environmental Sciences based in Birmingham, England and the Ministry of the Environment in Indonesia supported by Conservation International Indonesia and WWF Indonesia.
This colloquium was possibly the first time when eminent Islamic scholars and activists from as far a field as Africa, Europe, the Middle and Far East came together to discuss what is now developing into a specialism coming to be known as Islamic Natural Resource
Management. The consensus at the colloquium was that :
- The Qur'anic texts and the hadith literature provided ample
evidence of the depth of the ecological/environmental teachings
available to Muslims. - This needs to be organised into a format that could rapidly be
spread and absorbed by Muslim populations throughout the world. - Further events of this nature need to be organised especially to
inform and empower all Islam teachers from the basic madrasa level to
the classical seminaries to disseminate this knowledge. - Other countries should follow the Indonesian example and publish
more material on this subject.
Participants at the colloquium also felt that as Islam has so much to
offer that is positive in alleviating the environmental crisis Muslim
themselves should now come to the fore and join others in saving the
planet for future generations.
For More Information on Islamic Law and the Environment, see:
http://www.ifees.org.uk/IslamicLawandtheEnvironment.pdf.
