Lynn white Jr. in his famous paper, the historical roots of our ecological crisis (1967), accused Abrahamic religions for being partly responsible for modern ecological crisis. He claimed that these religions by some of their teachings or at least by neglecting the nature and its importance paved the way for the current sad situation. This paper raised different reactions and responses and some of the thinkers tried to show his misunderstanding of the issue. But one thing is for sure. We can see a very low and poor place for environmental thinking and philosophizing among modern Muslim thinkers. Indeed, most of their theoretical and intellectual efforts are devoted to social and theological issues such as social justice, human rights, gender equality, corporal justice, and, in brief, modernization of Islamic Sharaia or legal system.
Furthermore, these thinkers not only ignored other areas of thought, they disrespected other issues and looked at the thinkers of other areas with scorn and felt that this is a kind of escape from real and hot social issues. Their motto sometimes was and is “it is not our problem” or “it is not a real issue but a quasi-issue.”
This concentration of effort, although it was very important in itself, led to poverty and deficiency of attention to other current issues, especially ecological problems. While, as Prof. Eslami believes, Islamic teachings have many useful things to offer in this area, this neglection is not justified. Therefore, without going into detail, the lecture will try to give an outline for some foundations and bases for building an Islamic environmental theology and ethics. Prof. Eslami will use the Quran as his main source to pave the road for ecological thinking and expand it.