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Drawing on Quranic concepts of balance, stewardship and trust, the writer explores what Muslims owe the Earth amid ecological collapse and climate injustice. This balance is not limited to spirituality or personal ethics. It includes ecological systems, economic relations and social justice.
By KHADIJA SHARIFE
The ecological crisis has forced renewed attention towards the relationship between society, economics and the natural world.
The en masse production of oil and gas by undemocratic ‘Muslim’ governments, the destruction of endangered rainforests, and the brutal factory-farming conditions of so-called ‘halal’ chicken and beef stand in contrast to the Quran.
Within Islam, the Quran – an unchanged and unchangeable guide – presents a framework that connects ecological balance, economic justice and moral responsibility in ways that expose the causes of both inequity and the ongoing ecological collapse.
Central to this framework are the concepts of ecological mīzān (balance), the Earth as amānah (trust), and humanity as khalīfah (steward). These Quranic instructions are explicitly located in the concept of the Earth as āyah, a sign of God: ‘Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the Earth … there are signs for those of understanding.’ [Surah Ali ‘Imran, 3:190]
The Quran describes creation as existing in balance.
‘The sky, He raised it, and set the balance, so that you do not transgress in the balance.’ [Surah Ar-Rahman, 55:7-8]
This balance is not limited to spirituality or personal ethics. It includes ecological systems, economic relations and social justice. The natural world is presented as ordered and interconnected, with human beings expected to live within limits rather than exceed them. Environmental destruction, in this context, is not simply poor management or technological failure. It is a breach of the order established within creation itself.
This idea differs significantly from modern economic systems that place ecology within the service of fiat cash (financial) growth.
Under capitalism, ecosystems are often treated as instruments for production and accumulation – subsets of the economy. Forests become timber reserves, rivers become energy resources, and land becomes property to be extracted for profit. The economy is positioned as primary, while ecological systems are treated as secondary or external.
The Quranic framework reverses this relationship. The economy exists within ecology, not above it. Human activity is constrained by responsibilities towards the integrity of creation.
That is, the Quran positions the Earth and humanity’s responsibility towards it in the context of a theocentric culture, not an anthropocentric one. The concept of khalīfah is central to this understanding. Human beings are described as inheritors or stewards on Earth. Stewardship does not imply ownership in an absolute sense.
The Quran consistently presents ultimate ownership as belonging to God alone, while human beings exercise temporary authority subject to moral accountability. This distinction is important because it limits the idea that nature can be treated as private property without restraint. Land, water, animals and ecosystems are entrusted to humanity rather than surrendered for unrestricted exploitation.
Closely linked to stewardship is the concept of amānah, or trust. The Quran describes humanity as bearing a trust that even the mountains and the Earth declined to carry. In ecological terms, this trust implies responsibility for preserving the conditions necessary for life. Environmental destruction becomes not only a political or economic issue, but also an ethical and spiritual violation. Climate change, biodiversity collapse and pollution can therefore be understood as failures of trusteeship.
The Quran also presents the natural world as āyah, a sign of God. Nature is not inert matter – available as a passive resource – detached from meaning. The Earth, skies, oceans, plants and animals are repeatedly described as signs for those who reflect. This gives creation intrinsic value beyond its usefulness to humans.
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Ecological destruction is therefore not only the loss of resources, but also the destruction of signs through which divine order and meaning are encountered. This perspective also, uniquely to all other religions, provides animals with quasi-legal rights to exist as nations.
The Quran states that there is ‘no creature on the Earth nor bird that flies with its wings except that they are nations like yourselves’. The phrase umam amthālukum (‘nations like yourselves’) grants animals collective significance rather than reducing them to objects of utility. Animals are portrayed as communities with their own place within creation. Elsewhere, the Quran speaks of ants communicating, bees receiving inspiration, and birds glorifying God in ways humans may not fully understand.
While Muslims have a tendency to treat dogs as impure or napak, the Quran remembers the dog of the Companions of the Cave with divine reverence, as the steadfast companion of the righteous, and preserves it in sacred memory alongside them.
Similarly, cattle in the Quran are not reduced to meat or commodity; they are described as symbols of beauty, warmth and sustenance – signs within creation rather than units of consumption.
Factory-farmed chickens and cows cannot truly be considered halāl or ṭayyib within the Quranic ontology described above because the Quran’s standard is not merely ritual slaughter (zabīḥah) but the maintenance of mīzān (balance), amānah (trust), and the prohibition of fasād (corruption and harm).
The Quran’s description of animals as ‘creatures like yourselves’ and organised ‘nations’ who ‘glorify’ God stands in contrast to the unthinkable cruelty embodied in ‘halal’ factory farming in South Africa, where sentient animals are reduced to units of production and raised in conditions of filth and suffering throughout the process of growth. Even if the final slaughter ritual is performed correctly, meat produced through systems rooted in cruelty, ecological imbalance and corruption cannot coherently satisfy the Quranic requirement that food be not only halāl (technically lawful) but also ṭayyib – pure, wholesome, just and ethically sound.
This understanding challenges anthropocentric models that justify ecological destruction solely in terms of human benefit. Species extinction and habitat destruction are not merely technical losses to biodiversity. They involve the destruction of communities that possess value within the Quranic moral order.
The story of the she-camel of Thamūd illustrates this principle with particular force. The people of Thamūd were instructed to allow the she-camel to graze freely and to share access to water. Instead, they slaughtered her in an act associated with arrogance and defiance. Their destruction followed.
In the Quranic narrative, the she-camel functions as both a sign and a test of moral responsibility. The refusal to respect limits, monopolisation of resources, and harm inflicted upon creation become linked to the downfall of an entire society.
This narrative resonates strongly in the context of contemporary fossil-fuel economies. Oil and gas extraction have produced immense concentrations of wealth while generating large-scale ecological damage. Air pollution, water contamination, displacement, biodiversity loss and climate instability disproportionately affect poorer communities. The costs of extraction are frequently externalised onto populations with the least political or economic power.
The Quranic concept of fasād, often translated as corruption or ruin, is relevant here.
‘Corruption has appeared on land and sea because of what people’s hands have wrought.’ [Surah Ar-Rum, 30:41)
Fasād includes ecological destruction alongside social injustice. Environmental degradation and poverty are not separate crises within this framework; they are interconnected consequences of imbalance and exploitation. For this reason, economic justice in the Quran is inseparable from ecological justice.
Redistribution is embedded directly into production itself. The instruction to ‘give the poor their due on the day of harvest’ places social obligations at the point of economic activity rather than treating poverty as an afterthought.
Similarly, the Quran condemns isrāf, wastefulness and excess. Consumption without restraint is viewed not simply as inefficient but as morally destructive. Modern fossil-fuel economies frequently operate in opposition to these principles. Hydrocarbon wealth has often reinforced authoritarian governance, intensified inequality, and subordinated ecological concerns to economic growth.
In many cases, religious language has coexisted with systems dependent upon extraction and environmental degradation. The result is a contradiction between Quranic ecological principles and contemporary political economies organised around oil and gas.
The Quranic framework therefore proposes a fundamentally different orientation towards the Earth. Humanity is not an owner but a steward. Wealth is not unrestricted entitlement but trust. Nature is not raw material alone but āyah. Animals are not disposable commodities but nations.
Economic activity must operate within ecological limits rather than subordinating ecological systems to perpetual growth.
The question of what Muslims owe the Earth is therefore inseparable from questions of justice, restraint and responsibility.
Ecological collapse cannot be addressed solely through technology while economic systems continue to depend upon extraction, overconsumption and inequality.
The Quranic concepts of mīzān, amānah, khalīfah and umam suggest a model in which ecological integrity and social justice are inseparable obligations.
To abandon our responsibility as human beings – to protect the Earth systemically and to safeguard the lives of cows, dogs and other creatures within it – is perhaps, in Quranic terms, a betrayal of the trust, of bearing witness, and of Islam itself.
Khadija Sharife is a journalist and writer based in South Africa. Most recently, she led an investigation into a US-based medical company that resulted in global government intervention. The investigative story was a 2025 Pulitzer Prize finalist and received multiple awards.
