Our Deen is Green

As many Muslims in the UK are yet to awaken to the need for urgent action on climate change, and yet have lifestyles entrenched in the consumer culture, there is a need for a spiritual revival and effort for greater dialogue on this contemporary issue within Muslim communities. This is the thought behind our project, 'Our Deen is Green'.

We organised various activity workshops in Bradford and the Yorkshire Dales, for Muslim women and girls, giving them the opportunity to experience and understand the beauty of nature, while learning about their responsibilities towards the environment and the role that connecting with the earth plays in their faith.

We visited locations such as Ogden Water, Roberts Park, Northcliffe Park, Grassington, Ingleborough, Embsay Crag and Pen-y-ghent, exploring different terrain such as hills, forests, rivers and lakes along the way.

We held discussions in a local café about the need for and importance of climate action, sustainability of the environment and nature through recycling and upcycling of household products/furniture.

Working with a group called Due North Events, discussing how nature impacts our lives and our impact on the environment, linking it with reflection upon Islamic scripture and Islamic tradition related to the environment. We connected the participants to local climate action groups and organisations in the area.

We encouraged participants to connect the topic of climate change to issues of faith and their own lived experience, that they can better understand and acknowledge, helping them consider what climate action could mean to them and why it matters, and begin planning responses and interventions individually, as families and communities to contribute to the reduction of the impact created by climate change.

We also organised some workshops on recycling and in particular upcycling.  This involved transforming household items into newer quality, so they could be reused rather than thrown away. The participants learnt new skills about which products to use on which types of furniture. Many of them said this had encouraged them to upcycle more items around their homes, and look at longer term uses of items.