Climate Disasters Through the Lens of Islamic Environmental Stewardship
Ancient Wisdom for Modern Crises: What Yemeni and Pakistani Islamic Traditions Teach Us About Climate Suffering
The summer of 2025 has brought unprecedented climate disasters to two Muslim-majority nations already struggling under the weight of conflict and poverty. In Yemen, torrential floods since August have displaced over 100,000 people, destroyed homes and crops, and killed dozens while the nation grapples with an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s unusually intense monsoon season has claimed over 700 lives since June, with flash floods wiping entire villages from the map and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
These tragedies unfold in lands where Islam has shaped not just faith but fundamental relationships with the natural world for over a millennium. As climate disasters intensify globally, the ancient wisdom embedded in Islamic environmental stewardship offers profound insights into both understanding suffering and charting paths toward healing—perspectives often overlooked in secular climate discourse.
The Sacred Trust Violated
In Islamic cosmology, the relationship between humanity and nature is not one of dominance but of khalifah—sacred stewardship. The Quran explicitly declares that mulk (dominion) belongs exclusively to Allah, appearing forty-eight times to emphasize that humans are trustees, not masters, of creation. The Quran defined mankind as a Khālifah, or a representative or successor on the earth, rather than having dominion over or possession of it.
This understanding transforms how we interpret climate disasters. When floodwaters swept through Yemen’s Al Hudaydah governorate, destroying 34,260 homes and killing at least 100 people, Islamic environmental ethics would frame this not merely as a meteorological event, but as a consequence of humanity’s failure to maintain the mizan—the divine balance that sustains all life.
The notion of mizan, which means “balance”, is fundamental to an Islamic environmental perspective. This idea is employed to describe the complex eco-systems and physical laws of the cosmos. The Quran states: “As for the earth, We have spread it out, set firm mountains on it, and made everything grow there in due balance.”
Pakistan’s Floods: A Test of Collective Stewardship
In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where 344 people died in three catastrophic days in August, Sufi traditions offer additional layers of understanding. Sufism, practiced by roughly 60% of Pakistani Muslims, emphasizes the interconnectedness of all creation through the principle of tawhid—divine unity that flows through every aspect of existence.
This unity with creation expresses the reality that everything in the world is a part of God’s creation and is interconnected, making the entire world meaningful, valuable, and deserving of preservation.
Pakistani Sufi master traditions have long viewed natural disasters as spiritual tests that reveal the moral condition of communities. When cloudbursts destroyed three to five villages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Sufi environmental wisdom would interpret this devastation as both consequence and catalyst—a result of humanity’s broken covenant with creation and an opportunity for spiritual transformation.
The practice of maintaining “sacred animals” at Sufi shrines across Pakistan reflects this worldview. Local belief is highly influenced by Sufi thought which emphasizes the inherently fluid, traditional practices of the ‘cult of pirs’ who are believed to be able to cross the boundaries of nature and to subdue the dangers of the natural world with its wild animals. These traditions recognize the porousness between human and more-than-human worlds—a perspective that climate science is only beginning to appreciate.
Yemen’s Waters: Lessons in Scarcity and Abundance
Yemen’s relationship with water carries particular spiritual significance in Islamic tradition. The Prophet Muhammad’s emphasis on water conservation—even while performing ablutions beside an abundantly-flowing river—speaks directly to current realities where flash floods destroy communities already suffering from severe water scarcity.
The Prophet Muhammad said: “Do not waste water, even if you perform your ablution on the banks of an abundantly-flowing river.”
Yemen’s disaster illustrates the paradox of climate change: too much water arriving too quickly in places desperate for consistent supply. Islamic environmental ethics addresses this through the concept of israf (wastefulness), which prohibits both overconsumption and the systems that create artificial scarcity amid natural abundance.
Before Yemen’s current conflicts devastated infrastructure, traditional water management systems like terracing and cisterns allowed communities to work with seasonal rainfall patterns. Before the conflict, agriculture and food security thrived on seasonal rain. Yemen’s diverse topography, ranging from coastal plains to mountainous regions, allowed for a wide range of agricultural practices. The destruction of these time-tested systems represents a violation of the Islamic principle of preserving beneficial traditions and technologies.
The Spiritual Ecology of Suffering
Both Islamic and Sufi traditions view environmental crises through the lens of collective spiritual responsibility. The Quran states that corruption (fasad) in the land results from human actions and their consequences return to communities as trials and opportunities for repentance.
In Yemen, where floods have severely impacted the governorates of Al Hodeidah, Hajjah, Marib, Sa’dah, and Taiz, with nearly 268,000 individuals (38,285 families) affected, Islamic environmental ethics would emphasize that response must address both immediate suffering and underlying spiritual-ecological imbalances.
Similarly, Pakistan’s climate vulnerability—ranking among the world’s most climate-risk countries despite contributing minimally to global emissions—reflects what Islamic law calls zulm (injustice). The principle of environmental justice is deeply embedded in Islamic teaching: The essential elements of nature—earth, water, fire, forests, and light—belong to all living things and not only to the human race.
Pathways to Restoration
Islamic environmental wisdom offers concrete principles for climate response that go beyond technological solutions to address root spiritual and social causes:
Renewed Stewardship: The concept of khalifah demands that communities take active responsibility for environmental restoration, not as owners but as caretakers accountable to future generations and divine judgment.
Prophetic Moderation: Following the Prophet’s example of simple living (zohd), communities can reduce consumption and waste while focusing on genuine needs rather than artificial desires that drive overconsumption.
Collective Responsibility: The Islamic emphasis on ummah (community) means climate response must prioritize the most vulnerable. In Pakistan, this means protecting displaced families in flood-prone areas; in Yemen, ensuring aid reaches isolated communities cut off by damaged infrastructure.
Sacred Activism: Contemporary Muslim environmentalists are reviving the concept of jihad as struggle against environmental destruction, combining spiritual purification with practical conservation work.
Ancient Wisdom for Global Healing
As the world grapples with accelerating climate impacts, Islamic environmental traditions offer perspectives that complement and deepen secular approaches. The tragedies in Yemen and Pakistan remind us that climate change is not merely a technical problem requiring technical solutions, but a spiritual crisis demanding transformation in how humans relate to creation.
Islamic worldview defines a good life (Hayat Tayebah) living lightly on Earth (Zohd) and caring for both people and nature. Islamic discourse offers a sense of hope and optimism about the possibility of attaining harmony between human and nature.
The floodwaters that devastated Yemen and Pakistan carry both destruction and possibility—washing away the unsustainable while revealing the bedrock principles needed for genuine resilience. In Islamic understanding, such disasters are not punishments but ayat (signs) pointing toward necessary changes in human consciousness and behavior.
As rescue workers continue searching for survivors in Pakistan’s rubble-filled valleys and aid organizations struggle to reach Yemen’s flood-affected communities, the deeper work of restoration begins: rebuilding not just infrastructure, but the sacred relationship between human communities and the natural world that sustains all life.
The ancient wisdom of Islamic environmental stewardship suggests that healing our relationship with climate begins with recognizing our role not as masters of nature, but as trustees of a sacred creation—accountable both to future generations and to the Source of all balance and mercy.