Life in Islam

There are over one billion Muslims in the world today. Every single one of them understand the importance of the Qur’an. Over time people have tried to eradicate it, only for Muslims to memorize it and put it back together in the same order again. Millions of people today try very hard to memorize it.

Most people have difficulty memorizing the Qur’an because of the repetition involved.

There are three ways it can be memorized:

People that can read and understand the Arabic Qur’anic text
People that can read the Qur’anic Arabic, but not understand the text
People that cannot read and understand the Qur’anic Arabic text
Generally, most people forget the start of the ayah (sentence). Usually once they’ve memorized a few ayah’s, they stop recalling until it gets to the start of the next ayah. Once the start is remembered, then the rest of the ayah is usually remembered after it. Hence the trick is to have the start of the ayah memorized. This can be a word for each start of the ayah.

Let’s take an example for the very first surah (chapter) of the Qur’an which has 7 ayah.

The full ayah, in transliteration form reads like this

bismillâh ir-rahmân ir-rahîm
al-hamdulillâhi rabb il-âlamîn
ar-rahmân ir-rahîm
mâliki yawm id-dîn
iyyâka na`budu wa iyyâka nasta`în
ihdinâ s-sirât al-mustaqîm
sirât al-ladhîna an`amta `alayhim
ghayr il-maghdûbi `alayhim wa la d-dâlîn

If we take the start of each ayah then we have the below.

bismillâh
al-hamdulillâhi
ar-rahmân
mâliki
iyyâka
ihdinâ
sirât
Now we can use the start of each word on a locus.

Front Gate – bismillâh
Front Door – al-hamdulillâhi
Bed – ar-rahmân
Shower – mâliki
Sink – iyyâka
Cupboard – ihdinâ
Television – sirât
To memorize the start of each ayah, you will need to make a story up with the location and the ayah. For example:

You smash through your front gate and say ‘Bismillah”
You are knocking on your front door and accidently burp. You say ‘Al-hamdulillah’
You get the picture? Now make up stories for the rest of the surah below.

Keep going for the rest of the ayah and challenge yourself to memorize it using the method of loci. To memorize the Qu’ran in general, it is ideal to have a location per ayah. However this would mean over 6000 locations. Some ayah’s are one page long so it’s how you break up that page that will enable you to memorize it better.

English translation below.

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to God, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the world;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.
Practice memorizing the above using the method of loci. For example:

Front Gate – In the name of God…
Front Door – Praise be to God…
Bed – Most Gracious…
Shower – Master of the Day of Judgment…
Sink – Thee do we worship…
Cupboard- Show us the straight way…
Television – The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace…
Memorizing the start of an ayah will help you memorize the ayah, however there are long ayah’s in the Qu’ran as mentioned above. Linking these using the VAI memory principle will connect the ayah so that it is fully memorized.

To recall what you’ve memorized, go to your first loci and try and remember the story you’ve created for the word you associated using the VAI memory principle.

Recall English translation

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Try and select a surah from the Qur’an and test yourself. It does not have to be in Arabic. So long as you exercise your imagination, memory principles as well as techniques, it will provide a good foundation for brain development for you.

Aisha raḍyAllāhu ‘anha (may Allāh be pleased with her) reported:

“I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, say, ‘Jibreel, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, kept on recommending that I treat neighbors well until I thought that he would order me to treat them as my heirs’ “[Bukhari].

“And worship Allah and do not ascribe any partner to Him … the neighbor who is near of kin, the neighbor who is a stranger … Indeed Allah does not like anyone who is a swaggering braggart” (Quran chapter 4, verse 36).

A neighbor is one who lives near or next to another. Al-Hasan was asked about the neighbor and said, “The term ’neighbor’ includes the forty houses in front a person, the forty houses behind him, the forty houses on his right and the forty houses on his left.”

Neighbors are the first people whom we can run to in case of an emergency, be it a desperate need of salt or a fire in the night – Subhanallah! How beautiful is our religion that it coaches us to be our best with our neighbors.

So let’s see how we can be Productive Neighbors and earn the pleasure of Allah subḥānahu wa ta’āla (glorified and exalted be He):

1. Be Kind

Abu Shuraih Al-Khuza`i (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet ṣallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) said, “He who believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him be kind to his neighbor [Muslim].

Offer your neighbor a ride if you see them walking to the grocery store. Make chicken soup or home-made medicines for the common cold; ie, make sure they are in good health and let them know you are there for them.

2. Be Helpful

If you meet a new neighbor while they are moving in, greet them with a smile and bring them refreshments. Give them a quick run-through of the area in general, where things are located, and what can they expect from the community. If a former neighbor is moving out, then help them with packing, cleaning, and bring them dinner or lunch. If a neighbor is pregnant then organize a “food list” and all neighbors can chose a day on which they can bring food or help out in the house during the last weeks and the early weeks after child birth. Offer a ride to the school if your children go to the same one, or car pool.

3. Give Gifts

When you make something, send some over to your neighbor. Buy an extra box of donuts and give it to your neighbor. Abu Hurairah raḍyAllāhu ‘anhu (may Allāh be pleased with him) reported: Messenger of Allah ṣallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) said, “O Muslim women! No one of you should consider insignificant (a gift) to give to her neighbor even if it is (a gift of) the trotters of a sheep” [Bukhari and Muslim].

4. Stay Connected

Have tea/coffee once in a while together, visit them, or invite them over to your place. Stop for a one-minute chat when you see them outside. In this manner, you will know if they are sick or in need of something. It will also build your relationship just to know what is happening in your neighbor’s life, as well as give your neighbor a chance to get to know you better as well.

5. Form Hobby Clubs

You can form informal clubs together based on the common things you enjoy. These could be book clubs, craft clubs, gardening clubs, cooking clubs, etc. Plan walks or exercise routines together. It always helps to motivate oneself if such things are done in a group.

6. Be a Good Muslim Neighbor

In addition to the above ideas, here some more ideas of what can you do with a Muslim neighbor.

Organize halaqas– have weekly or monthly talks. Each neighbor should get a chance to host one, or you could make use of the community halls in your community to host them. Organize youth halaqas for the youth of the neighborhood. If you have a mosque in the community, then make it point to use it for the halaqas and ask someone who knows Arabic or tajweed to teach it to the rest. Invite the new neighbor to the halaqas or the potlucks held at the mosque or in the community.

Share Islamic knowledge – Get an extra pamphlet or free books that are given away with Islamic knowledge for your neighbor. Let them know about anything new that you learnt in the deen, maybe a new course that you started or a new website you checked or even a new article or book that you read.

Give gifts on festive occasions – make it a point to get gifts for your neighbor on Eids and share the special delicacies that you make on Eid.

7. A Muslim Relative Neighbor

A relative Muslim neighbor enjoys the maximum rights. So in addition to all the other tips, here is something more you can do to earn that extra hasanaat, inshallah:

Stay connected: Make it a point to meet often.
Share news of the family: Share any family news of marriages, job promotions, illnesses that you have come to know of so that they can also keep in touch with the other relatives.
Invite them – Make it a point to invite them often to the family gatherings that you host.

Having a good neighbor is a true blessing from Allah subḥānahu wa ta’āla (glorified and exalted be He), a blessing which I have been blessed with and am deeply thankful for. Let’s try to be Productive Neighbors and walk on the path shown to us by Allah subḥānahu wa ta’āla (glorified and exalted be He) and His Messenger ṣallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him).

“The best of companions in the sight of Allah Almighty is the best of them towards his companion, and the best of neighbors in the sight of Allah is the best of them towards his neighbor” [Al-Albani].

About the Author:

Sana Gul is a mother of two and a student , learning the Quran and the Seerah. She works for Islamic Lifestyle , a group aiming to help people live their lives according to the Quran and Sunnah.
She also writes for the blog.

With the great joy around the discovery of the Qur’an manuscript, here is what Qur’an expert and scholar, Shaykh Ayman Rushdi Suwayd (one of the highest authorities on Qur’anic Sciences today) says:

[Note, this is a summary of Shaykh’s words with my additions and observations]

1. We have to know one important point of difference between Western research methodology and research methodology in Islamic sciences. In western academia, ‘oldness’ represents a source of authenticity while in Islamic sciences ‘being old’ is not the only way or even the main way of proving the authenticity of something. We cannot accept a manuscript without knowing who wrote it and what he copied it from. If someone has written something from his head, even if this was during the Prophet’s time, peace be upon him, that is not authority. A manuscript of an unknown writer could have been written even by an enemy.

2. The Qur’an has been handed down through generations by means of tawātur (mass-narration) which technically means that the number of narrators is so huge that it is impossible to think that they have produced a lie. The number of narrators eliminates the possibility of fabrication or a mistake. The Quranic copies printed and used widely in the world today are based on tawatūr which means a Muslim in India and another in South America, who have never met, actually read the exact same Qur’an. An individual manuscript, even if its origin is known, remains a solitary narration which carries a possibility of error and therefore, its content is judged by its compliance with the mutawātir Qur’an, not the other way round.

3. As for the case in hand, Muslim scholars have developed rules relating to the script and the verse counting to confirm the authenticity of any discovered manuscript of the Qur’an. The copy of Sayyidna Abu Bakr is copied from the Qur’an written at the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And the copy of ‘Uthman was copied from the Abu Bakr copy. Scholars have studied deeply and documented what was there so that if today or in the future anyone says they have discovered a manuscript, we say: If it is in conformity with what we have, it is welcome but if not, then it has no value to us in terms of considering its content. Unless a manuscript is written in the proper process by known individuals, i.e. through the well-known methods of copying the Qur’an, we cannot refer back to it to validate or invalidate the Qur’an. What has been developed by the scholars through the ages is a structure and process that is enough and the Qur’an as it is in the Muslim hands today is as authentic and accurate as it was at the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him.

4. We should calm down and stop making assumptions and adding our own spices to the incident. We do not have to think that the discovery is a miracle unfolding for this or that reason. We believe in the Qur’an and we do not need miracles to increase our belief. Wisdom is appreciated. Do not be over joyous and do not try to read things in any excessive way.

Only Allah knows best.

Where do you find Paradise? The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “ Paradise is at the feet of the mother.”

This is variously interpreted to mean that the mother is responsible for teaching her children their religious obligations and good behaviour that will win them Paradise; or it may mean that we earn Paradise by serving our mother throughout her life.

Either way, it shows the great esteem, honour and respect that Islam has for mothers. While the fourth Commandment in the Bible is “Honour thy father and thy mother”, the Bible does not mention the mother separately as deserving good treatment.

The Qur’an, in contrast, gives special recognition to the mother’s suffering in bearing and nursing her child: “And We have enjoined on man to be good to his parents: In travail upon travail did his mother bear him and in two years was his weaning. Show gratitude to Me and to your parents” (31:14). (see themodernreligion.com under women)

Women are more psychologically fitted to nurturing, more compassionate and patient

Today in the Muslim world, even where many of the precepts of Islam are ignored, Westerners are often amazed at the gentle, loving treatment that parents receive. An Arab proverb says if you want to know how a man will treat his wife, look how he treats his mother.

Becoming a mother is one of the greatest joys of a Muslim woman. She knows that her child is both a gift and a trust from God. She carries a great responsibility in raising a family, not only in caring for their physical needs, but also in educating them in their religion and morals.

For this and other reasons, Islam calls upon all Muslims, male and female, to be educated, for how can a woman teach her children when she herself is ignorant?

Islam also recognizes that, compared to the man, the woman is by nature more psychologically fitted to nurturing, more compassionate and patient. For that reason, Islam decrees that husbands must maintain their wives and children, and it encourages mothers with young children to remain at home with their children rather than work outside the house. And, in case of divorce, custody of young children goes to the mother.

All this respect and honor goes to the mother, even if she is a non-Muslim, and also to maternal aunts. Thus the woman does not cut from her own family when she marries, but her children continue to honor the kin relationships of both their mother and father.

The frequency and timings of the Prayers never let the object and mission of life be lost sight of in the maze of worldly activities.

Ibadah (act of worship) is an Arabic word derived from `abd (a slave) and it means submission. It portrays that God is your master and you are His slave and whatever a slave does in obedience to and for the pleasure of his master is worship.

The Islamic concept of worship is very wide. If you free your speech from filth, falsehood, malice, and abuse and speak the truth and talk goodly things and do all these only because God has so ordained to do, they constitute `ibadah, however secular they may look in semblance.


If you obey the law of God in letter and spirit in your commercial and economic affairs and abide by it in your dealings with your parents, relatives, friends, and all those who come in contact with you, then all these activities of yours are worship. If you help the poor and the destitute, give food to the hungry, and serve the ailing and the afflicted persons, and do all this not for any personal gain of yours but only to seek the pleasure of God, they are nothing short of worship. Even your economic activities, the activities you undertake to earn your living and to feed your dependants, are worship if you remain honest and truthful in them and observe the law of God.


In short, all your activities and your entire life are worship if they are in accordance with the law of God, and your heart is filled with His fear, and your ultimate objective in undertaking all these activities is to seek the pleasure of God.

Thus, whenever you do good or avoid evil for fear of God, in whatever sphere of life and field of activity, you are discharging your Islamic obligations. This is the true significance of worship, namely total submission to the pleasure of God; the moulding into the patterns of Islam your entire life, leaving out not even the most insignificant part thereof. To help achieve this aim, a set of formal `ibadat (acts of worship) has been constituted, which serves as a course of training. These acts are thus the pillars on which the edifice of Islam rests.

Prayer (salah) is the most primary and the most important of these obligations. And what is salah? It is the prescribed daily Prayers which consist in repeating and refreshing five times a day the belief in which you repose your faith. You get up early in the morning, cleanse yourself and present yourself before your Lord for Prayer. The various poses that you assume during your Prayers are the very embodiment of the spirit of submission; the various recitals remind you of your commitments to your God. You seek His guidance and ask Him again and again to enable you to avoid His wrath and follow His chosen path. You read out from the Book of the Lord and express witness to the truth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and also refresh your belief in the Day of Judgment and enliven in your memory the fact that you have to appear before your Lord and give an account of your entire life. This is how your day starts.

In the Prayers you recite many things quietly and if you do not recite them or make any deviation from them, there is no one to check you.

Then, after a few hours you hear the call for Prayer, and you again submit to your God and renew your covenant with Him. You dissociate yourself from your worldly engagements for a few moments and seek audience with God. This once again brings to the fore of your mind your real role in life. After this rededication you revert to your occupations and again present yourself to the Lord after a few hours. This again acts as a reminder to you, and you once more refocus your attention on the stipulations of your faith.

When the sun sets and the darkness of the night begins to shroud you, you again submit yourself to God in Prayer so that you may not forget your duties and obligations in the midst of the approaching shadows of the night. And then after a few hours you again appear before your Lord, and this is your last Prayer of the day. Thus before going to bed you once again renew your faith and prostrate before your God. And this is how you complete your day. The frequency and timings of the Prayers never let the object and mission of life be lost sight of in the maze of worldly activities.

It is but easy to understand how the daily Prayers strengthen the foundations of your faith, prepare you for the observance of a life of virtue and obedience to God, and refresh that belief from which spring courage, sincerity, purposefulness, purity of heart, advancement of the soul, and enrichment of morals.

Now see how this is achieved: You perform ablution in the way prescribed by the Prophet (peace be upon him). You also say your Prayers according to the instructions of the Prophet. Why do you do so? Simply because you believe in the prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) and deem it your bounden duty to follow him ungrudgingly. Why do you not intentionally mis-recite the Quran? Isn’t it so because you regard the Book as the word of God and deem it a sin to deviate from its letter? In the Prayers you recite many things quietly and if you do not recite them or make any deviation from them, there is no one to check you. But you never do so intentionally. Why? Because you believe that God is ever watchful and that He listens to all that you recite and is aware of things open and hidden.

Prayers are also a symbol of equality, for the poor and the rich, the low and the high, the rulers and the ruled…

What makes you say your Prayers at places where there is no one to ask you to offer them or even to see you offering them? Isn’t it so because of your belief that God is ever looking at you? What makes you leave your important business and other occupations and rush towards the mosque for Prayers? What makes you terminate your sweet sleep in the early hours of the morning, to go to the mosque in the heat of the noon, and to leave your evening entertainments for the sake of Prayers? Is it anything other than sense of duty – your realization that you must fulfil your responsibility to the Lord, come what may? And why are you afraid of any mistake in Prayer? Because your heart is filled with the fear of God and you know that you have to appear before Him on the Day of Judgment and give an account of your entire life.

Now look! Can there be a better course of moral and spiritual training than Prayer? It is this training which makes a man a perfect Muslim. It reminds him of his covenant with God, refreshes his faith in Him, and keeps the belief in the Day of Judgment alive and ever present before his mind’s eye. It makes him follow the Prophet and trains him in the observance of his duties.

This is indeed a strict training for conforming one’s practice to one’s ideals. Obviously if a man’s consciousness of his duties towards his Creator is so acute that he prizes it above all worldly gains and keeps refreshing it through Prayers, he would certainly not be inviting the displeasure of God that he all along has striven to avoid. He will abide by the law of God in the entire gamut of life in the same way as he follows it in the five Prayers every day. This man can be relied upon in other fields of activity as well, for if the shadows of sin or deceit approach him, he will try to avoid them for fear of the Lord that would be ever present in his heart. And if even after such a vital training a man misbehaves himself in other fields of life and disobeys the law of God, it can only be because of some intrinsic depravity of his self.

Then again you must say your Prayers in congregation and especially so the Friday Prayer. This creates among the Muslims a bond of love and mutual understanding. This arouses in them the sense of their collective unity and fosters among them national fraternity. All of them say their Prayers in one congregation and this inculcates in them a deep feeling of brotherhood.

Prayers are also a symbol of equality, for the poor and the rich, the low and the high, the rulers and the ruled, the educated and the unlettered, the black and the white all stand in one row and prostrate before their Lord.

Prayers also inculcate in Muslims a strong sense of discipline and obedience to the elected leader. In short, Prayers train them in all those virtues that make possible the development of a rich individual and collective life.

These are a few of the myriad of benefits we can derive from the daily Prayers.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “There is none amongst the believers who plants a tree, or sows a seed, and then a bird, or a person, or an animal eats thereof, but it is regarded as having given a charitable gift [for which there is great recompense].” [Al-Bukhari, III:513].

 The idea of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) as a pioneer of environmentalism will initially strike many as strange: indeed, the term “environment” and related concepts like “ecology”, “environmental awareness” and “sustainability”, are modern-day inventions, terms that were formulated in the face of the growing concerns about the contemporary state of the natural world around us.


And yet a closer reading of the hadith, the body of work that recounts significant events in the Prophet’s life, reveals that he was a staunch advocate of environmental protection. One could say he was an “environmentalist avant la lettre”, a pioneer in the domain of conservation, sustainable development and resource management, and one who constantly sought to maintain a harmonious balance between man and nature. From all accounts of his life and deeds, we read that the Prophet had a profound respect for fauna and flora, as well as an almost visceral connection to the four elements, earth, water, fire and air.

He was a strong proponent of the sustainable use and cultivation of land and water, proper treatment of animals, plants and birds, and the equal rights of users. In this context the modernity of the Prophet’s view of the environment and the concepts he introduced to his followers is particularly striking; certain passages of the hadith could easily be mistaken for discussions about contemporary environmental issues.

Three Principles


The Prophet’s environmental philosophy is first of all holistic: it assumes a fundamental link and interdependency between all natural elements and bases its teachings on the premise that if man abuses or exhausts one element, the natural world as a whole will suffer direct consequences. This belief is nowhere formulated in one concise phrase; it is rather an underlying principle that forms the foundation of all the Prophet’s actions and words, a life philosophy that defined him as a person.

The three most important principles of the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) philosophy of nature are based on the Qur’anic teachings and the concepts of tawhid (unity), khalifa(stewardship) and amana (trust).


Tawhid, the oneness of God, is a cornerstone of the Islamic faith. It recognizes the fact that there is one absolute Creator and that man is responsible to Him for all his actions: “To God belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth, for God encompasses everything [4:126].”  The Prophet acknowledges that God’s knowledge and power covers everything. Therefore abusing one of his creations, whether it is a living being or a natural resource, is a sin. The Prophet considered all of God’s creations to be equal before God and he believed animals, but also land, forests and watercourses should have rights.

The concepts of khalifa, stewardship, and amana, trust, emerge from the principle of tawhid. The Qur’an explains that mankind holds a privileged position among God’s creations on earth: he is chosen as khalifa, “vice-regent” and carries the responsibility of caring for God’s earthly creations. Each individual is given this task and privilege in the form of God’s trust. But the Qur’an repeatedly warns believers against arrogance: they are no better than other creatures.  “No creature is there on earth nor a bird flying with its wings but they are nations like you [6:38]”; “Surely the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of man; but most people know not [40:57]”.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) believed that the universe and the creations in it – animals, plants, water, land – were not created for mankind. Man is allowed to use the resources but he can never own them. Thus while Islam allows land ownership, it has limitations: an owner can, for example, only own land if he uses it; once he ceases to use it, he has to part with his possession.

The Prophet recognized man’s responsibility to God but always maintained humility. Thus he said: “When doomsday comes, if someone has a palm shoot in his hand, he should plant it,” suggesting that even when all hope is lost for mankind, one should sustain nature’s growth. He believed that nature remains a good in itself, even if man does not benefit from it.

Similarly, the Prophet incited believers to share the earth’s resources. He said: “Muslims share alike in three things – water, herbage and fire,” and he considered it a sin to withhold water from the thirsty. “No one can refuse surplus water without sinning against Allah and against man” [Mishkat al Masabih].

The Prophet’s (peace be upon him) attitude towards sustainable use of land, conservation of water and the treatment of animals is a further illustration of the humility of his environmental philosophy.

Sustainable Use of Land

“The earth has been created for me as a mosque and as a means of purification.” [Al-Bukhari I:331] With these words the Prophet emphasizes the sacred nature of earth or soil, not only as a pure entity but also as a purifying agent. This reverence towards soil is also demonstrated in the ritual of tayammum, or “dry wudu” which permits the use of dust in the performance of ritual purification before prayer when water is not available.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) saw earth as subservient to man, but recognised that it should not be overexploited or abused, and that it had rights, like the trees and wildlife living on it. In order to protect land, forests and wildlife, the Prophet created inviolable zones known as hima and haram, in which resources were to be left untouched. Both are still in use today: haram areas are often drawn up around wells and water sources to protect the groundwater table from over-pumping. Hima applies particularly to wildlife and forestry and usually designates an area of land where grazing and woodcutting are restricted, or where certain animal species are protected.

The Prophet not only encouraged the sustainable use of fertile lands, he also told his followers of the benefits of making unused land productive: planting a tree, sowing a seed and irrigating dry land were all regarded as charitable deeds.“Whoever brings dead land to life, that is, cultivates wasteland, for him is a reward therein.” Thus any person who irrigates a plot of “dead”, or desert land becomes its rightful owner.

Conservation of Water

In the harsh desert environment where the Prophet (peace be upon him) lived, water was synonymous to life. Water was a gift from God, the source of all life on earth as is testified in the Qur’an:  “We made from water every living thing” [21:30].  The Qur’an constantly reminds believers that they are but the guardians of God’s creation on earth and that they should never take this creation for granted: “Consider the water which you drink. Was it you that brought it down from the rain cloud or We? If We had pleased, We could make it bitter” [56:68-70].

Saving water and safeguarding its purity were two important issues for the Prophet: we have seen that his concern about the sustainable use of water led to the creation of haram zones in the vicinity of water sources. But even when water was abundant, he advocated thriftiness: thus he recommended that believers perform wudu no more than three times, even if they were near to a flowing spring or river. The theologian El-Bukhari added: “ The men of science disapprove of exaggeration and also of exceeding the number of ablutions of the Prophet.” The Prophet also warned against water pollution by forbidding urination in stagnant water.

The Treatment of Animals:

“If anyone wrongfully kills even a sparrow, let alone anything greater, he will face God’s interrogation” [Mishkat al Masabih]. These words reflect the great reverence, respect and love that the Prophet always showed towards animals. He believed that as part of God’s creation, animals should be treated with dignity, and the hadith contains a large collection of traditions, admonitions and stories about his relationship to animals. It shows that he had particular consideration for horses and camels: to him they were valiant companions during journey and battle, and he found great solace and wisdom in their presence as the following tradition reveals: “In the forehead of horses are tied up welfare and bliss until the Day of Resurrection.”

Even in the slaughter of animals, the Prophet showed great gentleness and sensitivity. While he did not practice vegetarianism, the hadiths clearly show that the Prophet was extremely sensitive to the suffering of animals, almost as though he shared their pain viscerally. Thus he recommends using sharp knives and a good method so that the animal can die a quick death with as little pain as possible. He also warned against slaughtering an animal in the presence of other animals, or letting the animal witness the sharpening of blades: to him that was equal to “slaughtering the animal twice” and he emphatically condemned such practices as “abominable”.

Conclusion

It is impossible to do justice to the full scope and significance of Prophet Mohammed’s environmental philosophy in this short article. His holistic view of nature and his understanding of man’s place within the natural world pioneered environmental awareness within the Muslim community.

Sadly, the harmony that the Prophet advocated between man and his environment has today all too often been lost. As we face the effects of pollution and overexploitation, desertification and water scarcity in some parts of the world and floods and violent storms elsewhere, it is perhaps time for the world community as a whole, Muslims, Christians and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, atheists and agnostics, to take a leaf out of the Prophet’s book and address the current environmental crisis seriously and wisely.