The United Nations Environment Programme’s Faith for Earth Coalition launched its ground-breaking new document Al Mizan at the UN Environment Assembly, UNEA-6 on 27th February 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Al Mizan: A Covenant for the Earth is the Islamic sibling to Laudato Si’, written by Islamic scholars and chaired the Faith for Earth director, Dr Iyad Abumoghli. Meaning ‘The Balance’, Al Mizan presents the Islamic outlook on the environment.
The Animal Interfaith Alliance welcomes this far-sighted document which is spiritual, scientific and modern, and also easily accessible and understandable. We are particularly delighted by the positive language about animals, especially the quote that “all created beings have rights“. There are many references to animal rights throughout Al Mizan. Sections include “‘Value Inherent in Creation”, “A beautiful Exemplar: A Mercy to All Beings” and “Animal Welfare and Animal Rights”.
Al Mizan acknowledges the fact that industrial farming is a direct cause of pollution, climate change and loss of biodiversity. The argument for the nexus between animal rights and the environment is clearly made:
5.9 “Some kinds of farming, some kinds of ranching, and some kinds of hunting are far more wasteful of life and far more destructive of the fabric of life on Earth than other kinds. Most destructive, most wasteful by far are industrial farms that poison the soil, air and water, that replace the diversity of native plants with sterile monocultures, industrial livestock production facilities, such as poultry farms, feedlots, slaughterhouses, and dairies, and industrial fisheries – trawlers with vast nets that scrape the seabed and aquaculture systems that replace thriving coastal and freshwater ecosystems with festering sources of contamination. Industrial agriculture, as practiced today, is perhaps the single greatest factor effacing the diversity of life on Earth, and the gravest agent of global climate change. Is this not the quintessence of ifsad fi ‘l-ard, causing corruption, destruction, degradation and desecration in the Earth?”
The full document can be read here.
For further information go to https://www.almizan.earth/ and https://www.unep.org/al-mizan-covenant-earth
The Animal Interfaith Alliance is a UNEP accredited organisation and a member of UNEP’s Faith for Earth Coalition.
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