How to Achieve a Truly Sustainable World

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah. While early he was sotheby humanware, la Malema myinfo. Now one fan habima alum tena in the casimiro Mooji will do a long linear Oh to become an MLA amfa or calvia Shaolin FC Leticia, what do I use MMA or vanilla to superluminova is now hublin. amla don't cut off in the controller hub ob strategy sundry us and the only one that Emily Sani of ko Kohli will come back again. Another Tuesday seven o'clock St. Louis time Central American time. It's a pleasure to have you all today so power law. We're going to talk about something very different that what we have been covering almost for the

last year almost pantalla said and sorted out off. You have any Adam who luzina to come in the Columbus God walk Hulu washer 1234. In the Hulu head will miss Ruffin Children of Adam duras beautifully take your beauty if I want to translate literally trade, take your beauty or beautify yourself in every mosque, or basically this also mean for every seller. What color was trouble eat and drink. That's an order from Allah subhanaw taala now 1234 and don't waste in the whole life of a bull moose riffin wehrli he Subhana Allah don't like dislike those who are wasteful. Their nature is wasteful, whether it's time, whether it's resources, whether it is money, whether it is their

breath, anything that is being used over that what more than what we need, that's wastefulness, and Swati Sato, some have taught us in the meaning of Hadith that either commissar if the day of judgment about to come, and one of you is holding a tree, a small tree, let them or let him or her planted Subhanallah one of the major problems we are facing as humanity, it's not as Muslims only Muslims are part of the problem. And definitely part of the solution is what we are seeing is the global warming is the problems we are facing on earth is basically all what we are seeing on Earth, the damages the changes, and mainly is as a result of what we human being have done on this earth.

Gives me a great pleasure today to have two guests with me. And I'm gonna start with the first one, a very dear friend who is joining us from St. Louis. She's actually live in the same city where I am, who I came to know her about three, four years ago in the class of teskey. And I didn't know anything about her interest. And then somehow she became a regular student of tests of gender Institute, she volunteered for us. And through that, I came to learn about her passion, which is an amazing passion and I am going to make a confession to everybody. I absolutely learned from her all this concept and the hamdulillah by His grace, I'm applying it. I will see if it is 100% with almost

200% in my home. Without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you and to welcome Amina Amina Anwar salamati, Kumara hoopla. So good to see you. Welcome to the program. And why can summer for the cancer I'm so happy to see your doctor. Hey, I have not seen you since

all of this happened. So I it's hamdulillah I feel very, very blessed. Tell us about yourself first by the time you get your slides with us. Sure. Um, so um, my name is Amina. I live in St. Louis. I've lived here for about six years. I work in sustainability. I started the sustainability initiative at the Islamic foundation of greater St. Louis several years ago and it's now it's actually now a committee in the masjid which is really exciting. Our team we were able to accomplish a lot together we did if our composting in Ramadan of 2019 we had to cancel that the compost reservation for 2020 of course.

And we we banned we were able to ban plastic water bottles from the masjid

and installed water bottle filling stations. So

our team really did a lot of great work and and the message board Mashallah like has been so receptive and so supportive.

So let's go to your presentation first and then we're gonna as we learn, and I don't know if it's the same I'm sure you have updated but I learned from that presentation because we had a minute, three or four years ago in our Tuesday program and it was live in the masjid Bismillah Hayami? Okay, you

So I'm

Simon like, I'm everyone I've handled in house, let us know. And I was gonna

start by praising Allah and sending his deep Peace and blessings on the Beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

So, I, I This presentation is a little bit different from previous presentations, it's a lot of bit different actually. But I am going to quickly recap some of the things that we have discussed in previous presentations

a couple of years ago. So, I would like to start with some acknowledgments, firstly, immense gratitude to Allah for allowing me the opportunity to share this information. It's incredibly important information and I am very greedy for good deeds. And so being able to spread this information is such a huge blessing from Allah.

I'd also like to acknowledge that my ability to be here with you virtually today is due to the extraction of rare precious metals to create the computer that I'm sitting in front of.

And finally, I would like to acknowledge the physical space that I am in, on the earth. Where I am in St. Louis, Missouri was formerly territory belonging to the Kickapoo people who, along with every native indigenous tribe, to the Americas was forcibly removed from their space.

Finally, a disclaimer, I'm not a religious scholar, I am not even an academic scholar, I just am really passionate about sustainability. And as an observant Muslim, it I see the importance of sustainability in our Deen and it makes me so sad to see that it that it is not elevated as a theme. Generally speaking, in our teachings,

I mean in our modern teachings.

So just quickly, I would like to recap some of the the previous topics that we've discussed. They are mainly focused on individual actions, which are, as Muslims, we believe are incredibly important individual action, what we do, even if it doesn't make a change globally, or even community wide, we know that everything we do is written in our books, and Allah will call us to account for what we do. And so it is significant. Even if it doesn't seem like it makes any change. We know, as part of our faith, it's important.

So super quick recap. Um, I'll try to go really fast. These are some of the topics that we talked about previously. When it comes to food, we talked about the importance of eating organic, whole foods that are produced locally as much as possible. And we've talked about the conservation of water, even when it comes to Voodoo. And Dr. Haifa has talked about the headache about not wasting water, even in widu. There is extravagance

avoiding single use plastics when it comes to waste, opting for reusables, as much as possible.

So things like carrying out food, we always have containers that end up in the garbage, they serve a purpose for an hour, maybe a day, maybe two days. But it always ends up in the garbage. So I'm not using plastic water bottles, and I was asked to highlights the things that I do.

So I'm going to share with you

I've seen this in person, we were together in a restaurant, this is before the COVID. And I know she was so passionate about this, but I didn't believe to that extent. I was basically speechless. So she showed me everything showed it to us. Yeah, I mean, because that tells you you're passionate about something you can make a change. That's the whole idea. So show us please. Absolutely. And the story doctor HIPAA is referring to I didn't bring my container down but um, we had we had finished our meal and I had some left over and the server came and said, Would you like a box? And I said no. And I actually saw a doctor Hey, FAS expression like I was gonna waste my food like as you throw it

away. And then out of my purse, I took out my own container, and I put the food in the container to take it home so that I wasn't using styrofoam or plastic

But, so this is something I keep in my purse, it's just a

close up closer to the camera. Yes, sorry, I can't see myself. So

these are just their bamboo utensils. And if we ever eat out or or, or pick up food from somewhere, um, I have something that I don't throw away, so I keep it and I usually keep a metal straw in here, too.

So that's one thing.

I, of course, like reusable water bottle, coffee, you know, contain you pre COVID. Now some places are doing this, again, everyone stopped doing it when when you know the pandemic started. But you can take your own coffee cup or container to the coffee shop, and they will refill it, or they'll fill it for you. And a lot of times they'll give you a discount for it. So you know, pro tip there.

And

I have started buying fabric scraps and sewing them into napkins so that I'm not using

paper napkins at home. And this is a it's a soap bag. So you can use bar soap. And you don't have to use the poof that is made out of plastic materials. This is made out of cotton, some of them are made out of bamboo. And you just put your bar of soap in here. So no packaging, no plastic. And my my, oh, I guess my phone is an example too. I have a phone case made of

plant based materials.

And so this is, I don't know what was in this jar anymore, I don't remember. But um, I take this to the grocery store. And not all grocery stores do this. But the bulk bins at the grocery stores. If you take your jar to the front, they will weigh it, write down the weight of it. And then you can fill it with whatever item you desire from the bulk bins, these are chocolate chips.

And they will take off the weight of the jar and charge you just for the bulk item.

So those are just a few things that I was able to run around and grab from around my house. To give you some examples.

of Yes, if I may interfere naturally remember those. So that made me go online and do a search. And I put this and this is for everybody. I put earth friendly products. And I cannot tell you what I found. I mean it was eye opening. Absolutely. There is no more plastic bags There is everything is reusable in the house, but there is a lot even compost and we talked about that I'm sure you're gonna talk about so what I'm trying to find to tell everyone, these are not difficult. And by the way is not very expensive. Also, it is is just we need to change our mindset and putting so much effort in the beginning and then then it becomes a habit. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean,

absolutely, absolutely. And

part of avoiding waste is the composting. I know Dr. Haifa you have your compost bin at home,

too now.

Mashallah, that's amazing, I have a smaller one, I highly recommend to everybody, I'm not gonna say the brand because I'm not making an ad. But you can have a small one electric one that's actually for the kitchen. And after two or three hours, it turned to absolute compost, it is amazing. Or if you have a big yard, well then you have the bigger one. And when you can be mixing they are the waste from the yard and the waste from the kitchen. And that will if you have a big place, but if you don't have a big place this electric one is really amazing. So power law, I had this during the pandemic, it's I can't live without it anymore.

I love that. I love that. So, um, finally, we did talk about biodiversity too.

And, you know, just the beauty of all its creations and why it's so important to do what we can to preserve them. So much of what we do on the earth is destroying habitats and

really endangering a lot of a lot of animals species.

An example is palm oil, which will I will get to inshallah, at some point and if I don't, please, someone can feel free to ask about it.

So a lot of what we've talked about again, it's been

individual level sustainability. and sustainability itself, however, is a very broad topic. And it really is a systems level concept. So, in shallow like tonight, we'll be touching on this huge topic, which is environmental justice.

So I'll I guess I'll just jump into it now.

So this is, and I will get to defining environmental justice and environmental racism in some of these terms. But

this is this is a really shocking image to me. Everyone can see the presentation, right? I think.

So, this is actually a very small

space in the St. Louis area. And just, you can see the extreme disparity in life expectancy

in different zip codes. And

it's really, really striking that that two areas that are just a few miles apart can have, you know, an 1112 year life expectancy gap. So part of this is, you know, socioeconomic status in those zip codes, access to,

to clean foods to healthy foods.

There's also proximity to, to like dumping sites, landfills to industrial facilities. So so it's really, really striking. This is an I don't know how many people here are from St. Louis, but this is not far from where a lot of us live.

And, and people are living very differently, you know, in our neighborhood, essentially. So this, it's just something something to think about.

When I when I think about, you know, I think a lot about the West county bubble, if you're from St. Louis, maybe that sounds right. But it really is very isolated from the rest of the St. Louis area. And, and I think it's important to think about our neighbors.

So I want to read a couple excerpts from a study that was done on environmental racism in St. Louis just two years ago.

So, mold complaints are most prevalent in the city's majority black areas, while black and low income households face energy burdens that see them spend a much greater percentage of their income on utilities than typical city residents, often more than double the median amount in black residents are nearly twice as likely as white ones not to have access to healthy food, thanks to an absence of nearby supermarkets, a phenomenon some have coined as food apartheid, to reflect to reflect the role of systemic racism in engineering this result.

Also, it should come as no surprise that black St. Louis sins are disproportionately harmed by lead poisoning, asthma, mold, and high energy costs, all of which are associated with factors such as substandard housing conditions and air pollution, due to living near industrial facilities, highways, and building demolitions. In addition, the city's focus on enhancing majority white areas has left to majority black areas without adequate access to public transit, or healthy food. And with high concentrations of vacant properties and illegal trash dumping.

So sustainability, we can kind of step back now and look at sustainability. The textbook definition is avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance.

That's, you know, a very simple definition and it makes sense. And if we really unpack what that means, there's this paragraph I took from an article that I read,

called introduction to no sustainability without justice.

I'd like to read it if that's okay. Yeah.

The idea that sustainability jobs are about solving environmental problems tends to ignore the fact that environmental issues do not take place in a vacuum, but demonstrates systems of exploitation, oppression and domination, solving environmental issues equitably necessitates looking at the other

obstacles that barred black indigenous people of color from full participation in our society. The narrowness of a sustainability construct that is purely environmental, as opposed to intersectional also leaves out concepts like food justice, transportation, and climate equity are the links between poor environmental health, poverty and race. And in sister Cory is going to talk more about this intersectionality during her portion, from shaula.

Very briefly, this is the definition of environmental justice. It's the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. And below, there are further definitions of what fair treatment means, and also what meaning full involvement means.

I'm going to skip ahead so that we can get to the rest of the presentation shall

I'm

very quickly so Dr. Robert Bullard is considered the father of environmental justice. He has done he's extensively published on environmental justice related topics.

And so he writes, whether by conscious design or institutional neglect, communities of color in urban ghettos, in rural poverty pockets or on economically impoverished Native American reservations, face some of the worst environmental devastation in the nation.

I guess really quickly, in 1983, the US General Accounting Office conducted a study that found three out of four of the off site commercial hazard waste landfills in the south, were located in predominantly African American communities. And the reason this number was so shocking is that at that time, African Americans made up only 20% of the original population.

In 1987,

Dr. Bullard was part of a study the commission for racial justice, they found that race was the strongest variable in predicting the location of waste facilities.

And so now environmental racism, whether by conscious design or institutional neglect actions and decisions that result in the disproportionate exposure of people of color to environmental hazards and environmental health burdens.

So we know that justice is is a major theme in Islam. And there are myriad examples and instances in which justice is mentioned in Islam. And there are many contexts in which it's it's mentioned.

And it's hard to pick out one or two. But I did choose these two ads.

So I'll just I'll just read these translations from suits and Nisa. Oh, you who believe be staunch and justice witnesses for a lot, even though it'd be against yourselves or your parents or your relatives, be they rich or poor, for Allah is near unto both. So follow not your desires, lest you avoid justice. And if you lapse or fall away, then Lo, Allah is Ever informed of what you do.

And from stewartsville majda Oh, you who believe stand out firmly for Allah as just witnesses and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just that is nearer to piety and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is well acquainted with what you do.

And

so this, this hadith is hesson but inshallah it's still good to share.

So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is reported to have said, Do not be blind followers and say, if people do good, we do good. And the people do injustice, we do injustice, adjust yourself, when people do good, do good, and when they wrong, do not do injustice.

And so, when I hear this, I think this is important, and this is great, but there's no way I'm one of those blind followers. There's no way

and this makes me think of something that I learned from Dr. Haifa and she would say a lot in our test kiya class, is that when you read something like this, don't think of other people. I think the words you would use are turn the camera on yourself like that.

Look at yourself and think about what am I doing that might be injustice because I'm blindly following something.

So, some examples, I'm, how am I contributing to injustice? And so there there are ways that we, on a daily basis contribute to systems of oppression and injustice that we don't even think twice about. Our food choices is one example.

And am I buying fruit that came from somewhere where the person who harvested that fruit is underpaid and abused, and

you know, not fairly compensated for the work that they're doing?

When it comes to paper products? Am I overusing things? Like like paper towels? Am I over? Am I am I using too much paper? Am I printing things that I don't actually need to print?

Whole forests are felled just to make our toilet paper. It's it's really like something that that because we are so far removed from the processes behind the things that we do every day, we don't even think about this stuff. You know, I think toilet paper just comes from the grocery store. It there's so much that happens before it gets to target or wherever it is that we buy our products.

When it comes to energy,

am I am I cooling my house to 265 degrees in the summer? Do I need my house to be that cold? Am I aware of how much energy in Missouri we actually love all of our almost all of our energy comes from coal.

We're I think,

well I don't want to miss speak. But we're one of the biggest coal consumers in the United States.

So so just being mindful of these things, how much energy we're consuming? Am I driving to places out of just because I can, and I just driving willy nilly here and there. I'm thinking about how being mindful and how I'm getting from, from, you know, Point A to Point B? Is it the most efficient route? And can I accomplish other things while I'm doing this?

mica is a mineral that I'm actually going to touch on in the later slide.

single use plastics, I think at this point, we know as much as possible to avoid single use plastics.

When they break down, they break down into microplastics they never completely break down. These micro plastics have actually been shown studies have shown that micro plastics are in our bodies. They've found it in human you know, human poop. Like it's there. It's it's we're breathing it, we're eating it, we're drinking it, we don't even we're not even aware of it. And it hasn't been long enough for us to know what it's going to do to our bodies over a long period of time.

Palm oil we we've had a very robust conversation about this in a previous presentation. Palm oil is devastating. And one of the reasons is because it's almost invisible, we don't even know what we're using it and I would encourage anyone at home after this, you know, look at shampoo bottle, look at your soap, look at your peanut butter.

Read the ingredients. There's so many different ways that palm oil is also hidden as an ingredient but if it has the word palm in it anywhere, it might say palmitate or something, or palm kernel oil or something.

It's you know, it's in makeup products.

It is very pervasive in society. And

in order to produce palm oil, rain forest, pristine rain forest is is burned down to grow palm fruit trees and it's it's

it has endangered

orangutans and many other many other animal species.

So yeah, it's just you know, just look into it a little bit. Balloons themselves are pretty terrible.

They, they end up in the trash animals eat them, birds eat them. They get sick. But another reason that we don't think about balloons is helium. Helium is actually a it's not a renewable resource. We have a very finite amount of helium on the earth

and it is

It is an essential component of a lot of research labs and facilities, they need it for some of their equipment.

And we're just filling up birthday balloons and things to use for a couple of hours. And then you know, it's it's just wasted fast fashion.

I think people are more and more familiar with this, I won't name any companies, but there are stores where you can go and buy a $10 shirt, and like $10 pants and $10 shoes.

And

the people who make these clothes and these items, generally they're living, they're working in very hazardous, unsafe conditions, they're severely underpaid and exploited. So I encourage people to think twice about fast fashion maybe think about buying, buying pre loved clothes, we like to say um and I know that there is a stigma around that inshallah we can kind of dismantle that with information and education but clothes can still be new to you even if you know they're old to someone else.

So finally here up here are some specific examples. These are villagers on from this Pacific Island

they had to relocate their entire village because of rising sea levels that caused by you know, the burning of fossil fuels. And another example

this is in the island of the Maldives and this is kind of like a you know, a media stunt you know, publicity stunt type of thing that the the cabinet did, just to bring attention to the effect of rising sea levels because eventually, you know, they're they the, the Maldives actually is very at risk of

just not existing anymore.

So this is mica, this is, it's a mineral that exists in a few areas, it's this is an India,

children, pretty much only children are used to mine for mica, and the reason is that the tunnels are so small that only their bodies can get inside of them.

And there are many, many instances of tunnel collapses,

where children have perished from from this work.

And so if you're wondering what my guess is, it's used in paints to make to make them like shimmery, it's used in makeup, if any kind of makeup that's that has that like, glimmer, or that shine or that shimmer effect, very likely has mica in it.

And we don't want to forget the land and animals.

So so

we're very badly mistreating animals.

And in direct and indirect ways, and the amount of plastic that we're using. Generally, a lot of it ends up in in the ocean. And I know that people in Missouri might think, well, we don't live near close to the we don't live close to the ocean. So How could my plastic end up in the ocean? The answer is that we do live close to a river.

And storm drains generally, you know, lead out into a stream and then those you know, lead out into tributaries and such into the river and the root and rivers and up in seas and oceans. So

that's kind of the pipe way the pipeline for plastic into the ocean and also our agricultural practices. And hopefully, sister Cory has some time to talk about this because she is very well versed in regenerative agriculture.

So so we are depleting the nutrients in our soil because of the way that we are

tending to the land.

This is an indigenous tribe in the Amazon of Brazil. their way of life is and there are many such tribes, their their ways of life are tied to the land.

And even though that's this, this, this gentleman's folding, the Brazilian constitution where they actually gave

these

tribes land rights.

But still private corporations.

They sneak into their territory, they cut down trees.

They start you know, they they build little farms illegally, and really terrorize these people and threaten their lives and there have been murders

for the sake of using their land.

Closer to home, this is the Dakota Access Pipeline.

This is the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. So this pipeline has actually been been halted

now and the the, this tribe was protesting of, you know, private corporation wanting to build a pipe an oil pipeline underneath one of their freshwater lakes. And the amazing thing about this is that

if you look at the line of the pipeline, it's not straight. And the reason for that is that if it had gone straight, the majority white cities that it was going to go through such as Bismarck petitioned for this pipeline to be built away from their homes due to safety concerns. So instead, they were going to go under a freshwater lake, a source of water for this tribe.

And there are many instances of injustice and oppression

even now against indigenous peoples in in America, like illegal toxic waste dumping on their, on their territory.

If you're in Missouri, fun fact, this is not at all regulated, despite many attempts by some lawmakers to regulate this. This is a factory farm Lagoon, and there are a lot of these across Missouri.

I'll try to explain very quickly what this is. So factory farms are where they Steff a lot of animals into very small spaces because of our extreme appetite for me.

And because there's so many animals in such a small space, there's no easy way to

dispose of their fecal matter. So what they do is they dig up these lagoons and they throw it in there and mix it with some water. And they use it as irrigation for their land. And people who live within a few mile radius and you can guess who lives within a few miles radius of these places. It's always low income people of color.

They report higher asthma, respiratory issues, all sorts of health issues.

So without further ado, I'm sorry, sister Cory. I feel like I took a very long time and I'm really looking forward to this.

Sister, Cory Majid will take over now. And I'm going to sit back and and learn in sha Allah.

Allah Hi, Rania. Um, you know, it's extremely important that we really start learning about this, we you all know, the focus of gender Institute is education and education is not only about the Quran and the Hadith, and what we believe this is part of my belief, and I always say this to my friends, actually, I say to myself, number one, before I say to my friends, is that when I save the environment, I am doing an act of worship, Allah will reward me so we need to refocus or re change or change how we look at why we are doing things our knee our intention, when I don't waste water when I don't use too much guys or when I start turning off the lights in my home if I'm nothing that

will is not because I'm saving the environment, I am obeying Allah subhanho wa Taala. And this is very important. Yanni. Personally, on a personal level, once I start learning this and thinking this way, it became completely easy. It's very easy. Without further ado, I would love to introduce our beautiful end, guests. Cody, I am adding you right now. handler Brandon, and quotemedia is joining us from Washington. Am I right? I'm actually joining you from the land of the necochea tank and piscataway people's which is now called Maryland right outside Washington DC. Already go ahead and introduce yourself. Sister Cody to all of us. This man I would humbly with our Salatu was Salam ala

rasulillah. So I want to do this quickly. I want to get me out of the way so I can get to what I want to talk about what I want to share. So I started green Ramadan in 2013. And it was

My personal sadhika to my community to remind Muslims in particular to eat mindfully and tread lightly on the earth. And not too long ago I started the green team at my Masjid Masjid Mohammed, the nation's mosque in Washington, DC. And the purpose of the green team is to promote the prophetic model of sustainable sustainability and community life.

So I'm a student right now at be honest, I'm a graduate school. And right now I'm taking a course with Dr. Maria de cake. And she is one of the authors of the study Koran.

And 100 I'm so glad to have her as a teacher. So the class that I'm taking is called the Quran, collection, composition and teachings. And I'm so blessed to have her as a teacher. So just a few weeks ago, that I've never had a teacher talk about this in reference to the Koran. But just a few weeks ago, we had a class on cosmology and nature in the Koran. And I've never had a teacher talk about this right. And in this class, we discussed how nature is one of the major themes of the Koran. And in reading and digesting and discussing a work by basil Rahman and Sati are co our Han srishti has helped me to rediscover my Why, why I'm doing these things, why I started growing

Ramadan and why I started the green team at the mosque.

So my why that I'm rediscovering is Allah, my wife, my Why is Allah and in nature, similar to the Quran, I find myself searching for, and finding glimpses of a lot of beautiful names, you know, just trying to inch closer in nearness to Allah. Right. And it reminds me of, I think it's sort of Baccarat. When my servant asks you concerning me, indeed, I'm near, and I want to be near to Allah. So I'm just a student with a desire to be near to Allah. And that's like one part of,

of sacred activism. And in this, these blessed days, as we reflect on the rituals of homage, you know, I see myself connecting with hydrant right, she ran back and forth, back and forth, looking for out a man, the Merciful looking for artists off provider, looking for a lawyer, the capable looking for a bath and the knower of the hidden the hidden source of water, right? Looking for the source of goodness.

In these know, the miles of sand, and the mountains and the clouds of grounds, what would later become Mecca, she was looking for love, right? And in hogs, no hot season right now, that's what I'm looking for looking for these names of Allah in nature. And what I believe is that our disconnect from Allah is what is causing and feeding our environmental crisis. And let me tell you how, right

so in our disconnect from Allah, we are living a people centered life.

And I don't mean that in a good way.

I mean that because we see ourselves as the center of the universe, the earth, and everything else in it is just a resource. That's like capitalism at its core. Everything in the earth is just a resource. There's that disconnect from nature, which we're living in temperature controlled environments and bronze technology all the time, like right now.

We

have the leather is this month.

There is a difference between going to the store and buying for me.

And

there's a difference in effort and intention. And enjoy. If you if you have grown a tomato and there are a lot of probably a lot of COVID Gardens right now, right? Even if it's hot on your in your back porch. If you grow a tomato, and you taste that tomato, tomato taste, no tomato ever.

No tomato that you bought at the store tastes as good as that something that you that you.

And so back to this people centered life. We see everything around us as solely for our benefit and to satisfy our desires, right and we're living a life

centered around convenience, ie consumerism. We got Amazon at our fingertips. We got big box stores that sell items from literally all over the world. And we have grocery stores that sell food from all over the world and out of season. So if I'm in November in Maryland, and I want some strawberries, I can go to the store and get some strawberries. farmers don't grow strawberries in November in Maryland, they don't do that.

And lastly, there's there's nowhere in the Koran. There's no commandment of Allah. And Dr. Haifa correct me if I'm wrong, there's no statement of a profit. No festival, or any shake that says we must live the most convenient life. Actually, it's the opposite.

Exactly, exactly the opposite. It's actually Absolutely. I saw this author said I'm said at dunya signal moment, this life is the prison for the believer.

And what convenience is there in a prison? Well, era Gen natural movement, and the Hereafter is the paradise of the believer. And the dunya is the paradise of the disbeliever. So absolutely, I agree with you. We are not here to have fun and abuse. We are here to serve and struggle, because that's how it is. And then the result is there. I I really like this and I love though your picture also.

So I'm going to talk about that picture real quick. So right now we're in the and in the in the age of the Anthropocene, right? So in the age of the Anthropocene, that means that that activities of humans is the dominant influence of our environment in our climate.

Humans, these these could not even like the number of

humans is the answer just outnumber us by the millions and billions. But as little humans, we are influencing our, our environment and our climate. We're overusing and abusing Earth's resources in order to provide for our, for our endless, fleeting conveniences. And that has led to the degradation of the Earth's waterways and lands. And you know what? sound to talk about. And consequently, Earth's climate, death,

Nations communities, we're not talking about nations and communities. I'm talking about not only people, but plants and animals, they are communities just like us, right?

So moving from that, moving from that people centered perspective, right? That people centered focus, we're going to talk about environmental justice from an Islamic perspective. And when we're talking about it from an Islamic perspective, who's the center? Allah, Allah, Allah.

And if we have a lot as the center of our lives, then the earth and everything around it is a creation that glorifies a law in its own way. plants, animals, water, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountain, we're glorified.

Yeah, but

this is not sister Corey statement. This is our last statement. When we say in Elijah, we humbly reckon let us be out of communities we held. Allah said this authority saw nothing on this screen on this universe, but in the state of glorifying Allah however, you don't know. You don't understand the way they are doing it. Subhan Allah? Absolutely. And maybe the only people who are not and Allah also said this assorted hedge, and some of people notify Allah but everything else glorify Allah all the time. It's upon Allah. Right?

So yeah, I'm talking, I'm coming from a god centered perspective. So what I'm saying right now that comes from the good book that comes from the Quran, right? The customer Prophet sallallahu sallam. And one of the things that I most recently read in one of my classes is that I think this is from Fazal rough man.

And he calls the nature the prime miracle of Allah.

So when we, when we see when we see the this, how the sun rises up on a schedule, and sets on a schedule, that's a lot that's a miracle from Allah. And so when we see these things, our reverence for a law should deepen.

And we should be thankful that Allah is the one who may nature useful and and stable and ordered, but at the same time, complex and able to support various types of life. It's

It's amazing.

And like that, in itself is like a proof of loss, absolute power and cow heat. That, that we have all these different types of animals. We have, we have, you know, mammals and insects and fish, and amphibians, and birds, all these different types of animals. But Allah has all made them to use water. That's like a symbol, like water is like, Revelation, and everyone needs water.

And everything in nature is pointing to the one who created right. So when we connect with nature, we remember to be grateful. So just think about, you're on a hot day, and it's like 95 degrees, and you step under the shade of a tree of handling.

Or you feel that breeze that you didn't know you need it, but when you felt it 100 either.

Or when you feel that rain, you know that cool rain falling on your face? How did you know that that is what connecting with nature does, if you're saying 100 all the time.

Another thing that makes that's Alhamdulillah is that these systems, they're not self sufficient. They're ordered by Allah.

And it's it's a sign of a laws, unity and mercy that they are regular. And there is an abundance of science, right?

And another thing we can see from a god centered life is that

creation is a moral community is a more community because they're there, they praise the law, and they have rights. So

there's,

I think that what is it, there's the seven heavens and the earth and whatever is in them exalt the law, and there's not a thing except that it exalts Allah by his praise, but you don't understand their way of exalting right. And there's another one um, and there's no creature on the earth, or a bird that flies with its wings, except that they are communities like you. So they are communities and they have the rights.

And then we have in a god centered life, a god centered mindset we have humanity as a halifa. And when when you consider yourself as a halifa, that means you are you are one element of this total, amazing world that is magnificently weaved together by Allah.

So we are part of and within the environment. And there's something I like to say, Allah has made us clearly first not consumers, right? We're caretakers of the earth and sort of

Allah, it is he who has made you successors Khalifa Hello, first stewards caretakers upon the earth, and is raised some of you above others in Gary's that he might try you go by what he has given you. So when a lot of our our affluence, our wealth, our status, that's our test.

Start from birth.

The last verse of circling around your sister Cody just said, well who will lead the dialer? kohala if I fill out he Allah made you holla if he's not one Holly for all of you, why what are five other confirmed cabal intelligence and he made some of you higher status than others why Leah believer come to test you female attacker, he assisting you in what he is giving us or he is now or he gave us I gave you the water What did you do with it? I gave you the plant. What did you do with it? I gave you the environment. What did you do with it? We will be asked about that. Whenever this is extremely important that we put Islamic belief and knowledge and practice with reality is not only

I'm gonna go to the mosque and pray or I'm praying at home and fast, every single thing in my daily life is an act of worship, including taking care of the environment, Zachariah, hey, Cody, this is really nice. hamdulillah. So other tests that we have, we have like the failure to maintain the balance, we are perpetuating inequality, we're being unjust to ourselves and to others, and you know, that that leads to suffering.

So

the last part of a god centered life is reminds me of what Sr. amo was, was was doing earlier, she was, you know, showing us all the things that she that she uses, in order to prevent, you know, harm on our planet. And that is that is, to me, that is an example of a center of excellence, of paying attention to things that other people don't pay attention to. Right. And we want instead of imposing our will upon the planet

and changing the environment changing, changing the climate, we want a law to oppose

a laws will on us, right?

So when we're planning our eat celebrations, we want to consider that the need to commemorate our holy holidays in a way that doesn't pollute or damage our nature or neighborhoods, right? We want to, we want closest to a lot. So our motivation behind environmental justice is not just, you know, the beauty of nature, but it's the pursuit of the pleasure

and nearness to the divine.

That's, that's why that's our why. That's our why.

Absolutely, I cannot say it better, practically everything is said has been said, It is so easy to implement will lie. And I'm saying this, again, not by reading books, is just changed your mind such, look at everything you do. Everything you do, you will be asked, and you will be rewarded. So you leaving the room, turn off the light, you are washing dishes, this is one of the things that really, to me.

I see a lot of waste of water in two places. One is in mobile, and one in the kitchen. So you are basically raising the dishes to put it in the dishwasher. Why the water still running. You're doing mobile, why the waters still running, and you are washed. And you are, let's say wiping your head. Why? Well how much is going to take me to just do this movement, just turn it off, how many rewards I will get and how many rewards I missed by doing this. And we really have to

enforce this. It's a habit for me if I am in the masjid I sometimes what I do, I close the water as she's doing the water. I just close it.

Because you know what, by the time I explained, the water is running. So we do this

right. And I always tell people, you know what, I am a hunter of good deeds. You don't want it I'm taking it and look at it this way. That's how islamically it is. It's very, very easy. And you come to my home and you I have to invite you again very soon. I actually now have if you open the bin for the garbage when there's three places. One, it says compost one it says trash one it's recycled, that trash one is the least is absolutely the least. Because once you start composing, composting, everything you do in the kitchen, I will say personally 70% of your waste is gone.

Everything you peel, even things goes bad, unfortunately, but sometimes these things happen, you know, just composed. And if you are a person who garden, I can tell you seven haven't. If you don't garden, give it to somebody who garden I actually also because now I have a lot, so I'm sharing it with my friends, it is very easy. And a lot of reward. Think of the reward all the time. We have less than two minutes here, Cory? I hope we have we finished or not yet. Let me just let me just share just a few ways that

a Muslim can can be just with the environment. The first one is just read and contemplate the signs of nature, you can go to the next slide. Just read and contemplate a lot of signs of nature that's that will get your connection with Allah right. And you nature as your fellow Muslims worshipping God, right?

Remember your your halifa not a consumer. All right.

And last, and lastly, live simply and just do small but consistent deeds. A humble man in a law. At the Omaha we're in alert the most beautiful deeds to Allah, the One that we do constantly, even if they are little, there's a hadith of Francois De Soto sir. So every time I close the water, not only today because I listened to this talk, and then tomorrow I forget. But if I keep doing it, doing it doing it, this is way more beloved than doing it once. Constantly them it becomes habit once becomes habit. It becomes very easy.

That's it, it's all you

we did very good on time. I have to tell you, we didn't waste time and 100

take home message care. I would ask a minute and I will ask you, Cory I mean a take home message for people who are listening to us practical tips.

I I would say

it's your it's all your intention. Make the intention. Just Just being mindful.

Think about the things that we do automatically every day just on autopilot. Think about those things. And you'll see it like you ask, ask Allah He will, he will show you. Ask him to show you all the places in your life where you can make this change. And just take a moment to be mindful of what you're doing.

And inshallah it will fall in place and read and learn and be open minded to receiving knowledge. And

mine is,

is a change in mindset before you people sometimes people think you have to buy stuff to be green. You need to it's a way of being it's a way of thinking. So the next time you have a purchase, just ask yourself am I being Khalif? Am I being a Khalifa or consumer? That's exactly you look at your cart when you're in the supermarket. Exactly. There's a lot of things that we are so used to picking up don't pick it up and just ask this question I actually asked two questions. Number one do I need it?

Because a lot of the things we buy we don't need Subhan Allah and if COVID taught us anything taught us how many things we can live without Subhan Allah and I hope we don't forget now things are going back to normal and number 2am I being a halifa I love this word Am I pleasing Allah pantalla so many again I will end up with this look for a lot of products that's now everywhere online and actually even in stores where they are friendly environmental friendly, you know like paper towel I don't recall the last time I put I bought paper towel it's gone because now there is exactly like paper towel but they are not there to use reusable. The one sheet can be used for six months. Can I yeah,

I add one small thing but but be careful because now corporations and people who don't care about the environment, they know that consumers are looking for the word sustainable. Consumers are looking for the words eco friendly. So look at the company that you're purchasing from, are they actually genuinely you know, stewards of the earth do they actually care about sustainability? So okay, already everything is about making money so but the point that let's start step by step because we don't want to overwhelm everybody at least change your two things your intention, why you are doing it and how you are doing it. And that's our Dean Actually, I love this this should be part

two and three and four. Because this is you know, we just touched on the honestly, we just touched on the outside of it and we need to start practicing and maybe giving more practical tips and more examples. JACK Miller here. So good to see you again Yamuna. Salalah who meet in person to recording you're more than welcome to come St. Louis. You have another home both of us are.

We'll meet you again be it Nila jack ma Hey Allah Subhana Colombo, we have a shadow and

stuff. We will call it