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along with all kinds of fertilizers. It was not use bothering them; they would not have understood at this
time what we meant about the protection of the environment.
No wonder! This was a new problem for them as well as for us!
This year was a terrible year!
We first had the drought. The summer had been exceptionally dry. The fumes coming from the industries
and the ongoing deforestation made our stay in the valley almost unbearable! It seemed that evergreen
spots had to disappear from the surface of the earth since the town constantly built parkings and streets.
Summer was ideal for the construction work!
Us, kids, could not bear one more minute of all this! We were on vacation and the vacation was originally
destined to let children help parents harvesting and do the entire extra farm work needed at the time. Now,
nobody needed us anymore; the machines and the robots did the work for us. We were stiff bored, and
feeling very unhappy!
This year, for the first time ever, we witnessed the first cyclone whirling miles away from the town. That
was the scariest time of my life!
The cyclone let many people without shelter and work! It killed more fish and more animals and many
trees were scattered around because they had become too weak to resist any assault of the wind.
Finally we decided that nothing would happen without Allah’s Benediction, so we prayed and prayed
again, till our feet swelled.
We asked Allah to send us somebody who could advise and help us.
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Some of our prayers must have reached because, one day, we heard that a great imam, a Muslim scholar,
was on his way to our town to talk about the pollution in the world. This imam would maybe be the answer
key to our worries and concerns?
The imam exclaimed upon his arrival:
Corruption has appeared over land and water on account of what man’s hands have wrought.
[Qur’an 30;41]
Do not cut down trees and do not kill animals except for food.
Eat and drink, but waste not by indulging in excesses; surely, God does not approve of the
intemperate.
[Qur’an: 7:31]
Man shall have nothing but what he strives for [Qur’an 53:39]
Then , he repeated three times:
Watch your waste, then recycle.
Watch your waste, then recycle.
Watch your waste, then recycle.
In his Friday Khutba, he explained further:
Both indoor and outdoor pollution are the result of businessmen’s greed.
Why? Because you spend too much shopping, and your desires have taken over you!
More than that, pollution is really a problem of ENERGY (how we heat our homes, how we use electricity
and fossil fuels); and also TRANSPORTATION.
Look at our traditional ways, in opposition to the modern ways of production and transportation!
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