Mizan: A Covenant with the World

Mizan: A Covenant with the World, finalized after five years of intensive work, was announced to the world by UNEP in Nairobi on February 27, 2024. High-level officials attended the launch meeting, including the Minister of Energy and Environment of Morocco, Leila Benali, the Secretary General of the Muslim Elders Council, Dr. Samir Boudinar, and the core team involved in the preparation of Mizan. Thus, the process that began in Nairobi in 2019 was completed.

The main objective in the preparation of Mizan: A Covenant with the World is to present the teachings of Islam regarding the environment so that Muslims, numbering over 1.8 billion, can adopt sustainability as part of their daily lives and develop a compassion-based approach to all creation.

Named after the concept of "Mîzân" (55/Rahmân: 7-10), which is repeated four times at the beginning of Surah Ar-Rahman, the text is a covenant, or an agreement, that Muslims have made with the world. For this reason, the prepared covenant was named “Mizan: A Covenant with the World.”

The spirit of the covenant is based on the belief in tawhid, the fundamental pillar of the Islamic worldview. For tawhid is the affirmation of the oneness of Allah and the cornerstone of Islamic ethics. We Muslims accept the oneness of Allah as the foundation of the metaphysics, ethics, law, and spirituality of our faith. The Quran begins with praise to Allah as the “Lord of the Worlds” (1/Fatiha: 1) in the Fatiha, which we recite five times daily in our prayers.

Since Allah “has inscribed for Himself mercy” (6/An'am: 54), Mizan proposes a morality of compassion that encompasses all creatures. It suggests to Muslims and all people to walk “upon the earth with humility.” It foresees that a morality based on compassion and humility can be a solution to many chronic problems of humanity and the world.

Therefore, we see Mizan as a beacon of hope emerging from the heart of the Islamic world at a time when the world is facing unprecedented challenges. For this reason, we hope that Mizan will establish competencies and networks of cooperation between those working on religion, environment, and sustainable development, as well as scientists and research centers, both within the Islamic world and beyond.

With your ownership and contributions, Mizan: A Covenant with the World will foster an understanding based on compassion with this world and all its living beings that Allah has bestowed upon us; thus, we can leave a world that is habitable for our grandchildren, with its air, water, soil, and everything else.

How our grandchildren will remember us in the future will depend on the decisions we make and the steps we take today.

As Muslims, I wish this work to be beneficial, with the awareness that we will be held accountable in the hereafter for “an atom’s weight of good and an atom’s weight of evil” (99/Zilzal: 7-8) that we do in this world.

Publication Date: 2024

ISBN: 978-605-9596-90-9                   

Print Run: 1st Edition

Language: Turkish

Number of Pages: 206

Publisher: Üsküdar University Publications - 67