Indonesian Madrasahs Protect Environment
Indonesians madrasahs, known locally as pesantrens, are taking the lead in protecting the environment based on the teachings of Islam.
"Environmental awareness is growing more and more among the pesantren community," Ahmad Suaedy, executive director of the Jakarta-based Wahid Institute, told the International Herald Tribune on Tuesday, May 6.
He said Islamic boarding schools are involved in positive social and economic development with environmentalism just the most recent cause.
Nasruddin Anshory, the founder of the Ilmu Giri Islamic school, was a shining star during the UN conference on global climate change in Bali last December.
Visitors have been flocking to his school, founded five years ago and devoted to environmentalism.
Islam & Environment
"As a Muslim you have to do something," he told the latest group of visitors, a mix of people from universities and mosques from across Java, about responsibility towards the environment.
"I remember stories of landslides destroying crops and houses," said Wardoyo, a young Ilmu Giri student.
"Now, if we have to cut down one tree, we plant two more."
More than three million students are registered in Indonesia's 14,000 pesantrens.
Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's biggest Muslim group with an estimated 40-million membership, has 12,000 of the registered pesantrens.
Pioneers
But Indonesians boast that their pesantrens started caring for the environment long before anyone else.
Muhammad Syarqawi founded the pesantren Guluk-Guluk, also called Al Nuqayah, on the island of Madura, off northeastern Java, in 1887 after his return from a trip to the holy city of Makkah.
He originally wanted to spread Islam on a lawless, violent island but soon realized that problems were rooted in its devastated environment.
Syarqawi began teaching the island's villagers how the Noble Qur'an orders Muslims to care about and protect their environment.
His Islamic boarding school, which remained the only one of its kind for decades, has won several prestigious local and international awards.
Attendance in the past 20 years has ballooned from 1,200 to more than 6,500.
But Saleem Ali, associate dean of graduate studies at the Rubenstein School for the Environment at the University of Vermont, traces this environmentalism trend to the beginning of Islam.
"The advent of Islam as an organized religion occurred in the desert environment of Arabia, and hence there was considerable attention paid to ecological concerns within Islamic ethics," he said.
"There is a reverence of nature that stems from essential pragmatism within the faith."
IOL
He said Islamic boarding schools are involved in positive social and economic development with environmentalism just the most recent cause.
Nasruddin Anshory, the founder of the Ilmu Giri Islamic school, was a shining star during the UN conference on global climate change in Bali last December.
Visitors have been flocking to his school, founded five years ago and devoted to environmentalism.
Islam & Environment
"As a Muslim you have to do something," he told the latest group of visitors, a mix of people from universities and mosques from across Java, about responsibility towards the environment.
"I remember stories of landslides destroying crops and houses," said Wardoyo, a young Ilmu Giri student.
"Now, if we have to cut down one tree, we plant two more."
More than three million students are registered in Indonesia's 14,000 pesantrens.
Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's biggest Muslim group with an estimated 40-million membership, has 12,000 of the registered pesantrens.
Pioneers
But Indonesians boast that their pesantrens started caring for the environment long before anyone else.
Muhammad Syarqawi founded the pesantren Guluk-Guluk, also called Al Nuqayah, on the island of Madura, off northeastern Java, in 1887 after his return from a trip to the holy city of Makkah.
He originally wanted to spread Islam on a lawless, violent island but soon realized that problems were rooted in its devastated environment.
Syarqawi began teaching the island's villagers how the Noble Qur'an orders Muslims to care about and protect their environment.
His Islamic boarding school, which remained the only one of its kind for decades, has won several prestigious local and international awards.
Attendance in the past 20 years has ballooned from 1,200 to more than 6,500.
But Saleem Ali, associate dean of graduate studies at the Rubenstein School for the Environment at the University of Vermont, traces this environmentalism trend to the beginning of Islam.
"The advent of Islam as an organized religion occurred in the desert environment of Arabia, and hence there was considerable attention paid to ecological concerns within Islamic ethics," he said.
"There is a reverence of nature that stems from essential pragmatism within the faith."
IOL
Related News
