Islam urged to go green

One of Islam’s most important cities, Madinah, is to become a model ‘green’ city. 

A Muslim Seven Year action plan on the environment, was unveiled yesterday by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Goma’a at a religion and environment conference in Windsor this week.

‘The City of the Prophet’, the second most important city in Islam, will be ‘greened’ as part of a plan aimed at long-term lifestyle and attitude change among the world’s 1.3billion Muslims.

Other cities to be greened include Sala in Morocco and the Grand Mufti’s own city of Dar Al Iftaa, in Egypt, which Sheikh Ali Goma’a said ‘had already started taking practical steps to go carbon neutral in 2010’.

The Grand Mufti made his announcement in front of around 200 faith and secular leaders from around the world on the first day of the three-day Celebration of Faiths and the Environment, organised by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) and the United Nations Development Programme.

But his words were also aimed at Muslims in some 50 countries for whom the Muslim Plan is intended to transform their relationship with the environment.

Speaking through a translator, Sheikh Ali Goma’a said: ‘We are committed to contribute to ongoing global efforts dealing with climate change, based on the Muslim Seven Year action plan that reflects Islamic principles and values.’

It was, he added, ‘a religious duty to safeguard our environment and advocate the importance of preserving it. Pollution and global warming pose an even greater threat than war, and the fight to preserve the environment could be the most positive way of bringing humanity together.’

Commenting afterwards, ARC secretary general Martin Palmer said: ‘This is part of a hugely complicated process: Islam saying to Islamic governments that this is how you should act Islamically.’

UN Assistant Secretary-General Olav Kjorven said the Windsor gathering could not have come at a better time: negotiators were meeting in Barcelona this week ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference next month.

Tomorrow, UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon will make a keynote address at Windsor Castle, in the presence of HRH The Prince Philip, founder of ARC.

ARC which was founded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1995 says it aims to help 11 ‘major faiths’ to ‘protect the living planet’.

See the Event website www.windsor2009.org


To read the summaries, please follow the link from this page: www.windsor2009.org/page4.htm.
Press: Victoria Finlay, ARC communications director: +44 7960 111587; victoriaf@arcworld.org
Susie Weldon: +44 1225 758004; +44 797 0466 830; susiewitharc@googlemail.com
UNDP CONTACT: Stanislav Saling, UNDP communications specialist: +1 212 906 5296; stanislav.saling@undp.org