Towards Ecoliberationist Muslim Environmental Ethics

Muslim environmental ethics has been largely defined by competing versions of stewardship ethics (i.e. khilāfat al-arḍ), which is based on the Qur’an and is arguably the main ethical modality in the history of the classical Islam sciences at-large (i.e., theology, law, mysticism). While there are some who argue for moving away from this model (Tlili 2015, Gade 2019), the stewardship of the earth model remains the most cited and practically-used model for environmental ethics in global Muslim environmental discourse, activist organizations and environmental justice movements. The arguments against the khilāfa model are important to consider, especially in relation to issues such as anthropocentrism and speciesism. However, there is a need to not only critique the model for its perceived or actual limits, but to reclaim it from a radical ecoliberation theology perspective. In this paper, I argue for an ecoliberation theology approach to the question of Muslim environmental ethics and the stewardship of the earth model, particularly as it relates to human/nonhuman relations and hierarchies of being.