MAN AND POLLUTION

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MAN AND POLLUTION

41- Corruption has appeared on land and sea because of what the hands of people 
have earned, He thus lets them taste the consequences of their works that they 
may return. 
30-The Romans, 41 

Man has been paying the cost of damages he has inflicted on his surroundings and 
nature throughout centuries. Passion for more money, sloth and irresponsibility 
have made man blind to the fact that he is part of his natural environment and 
that the damage he causes it will unavoidably affect him. The development of 
environmental consciousness in man, who has suffered from damages of his own 
doing, is a recent event. Environmental awareness only received special emphasis 
in the world after 1970. 

In a century and place where environmental awareness cannot be said to have 
existed, the reference made in the Quran to this fact, that is to the corruption 
caused in the land and the sea on account of that which men?s hands have wrought, 
is a lesson of great scope. We translate the Arabic word ?bahr? as ?sea? (However, 
it may also designate large lake, reservoir, inland sea, waterway, etc.). We are 
advised that we are not allowed to dispose as we like of nature?s endowments 
since otherwise we shall have to pay for it. We are also informed that the 
damage caused by man to his own environment will also affect the land and the 
sea beyond his own limits. Therefore nobody is allowed to say, ?I am on my own. 
No one can meddle with what I do.? Nature is our common heritage and it is 
everybody?s duty to contribute to the checking of this transgression. 

DAMAGE CAUSED TO THE ENVIRONMENT
It is correct to say that the industrial revolution in the 19th century highly 
contributed to the growth of pollution. It is, however, not correct to say that 
this was the beginning of pollution of the environment. This process had been 
going on since ancient times. What is new, however, is the development of 
ecology and the ecological consciousness. To begin with, the burning down of 
forests is a happenstance that has been going on for ages. Forest fire was the 
principal cause of such diseases as man often suffered in the past, like 
antrakosis. These pyromaniacs had certainly no inkling of what they were 
perpetrating with their own hands. 

During the Middle Ages, environmental pollution seems to have been an important 
problem. In the England of 1345, people who tossed feces out of their windows 
were fined two shillings. In the 12th century, Philippe Auguste of France was 
the first king to ordain the collection of abominable waste littering the 
streets of the city. The public who disposed of their waste by channeling it 
into waterways polluted the springs they drank from. The first law on pollution 
that we know about was passed in 1388 by the British parliament; this law 
prohibited the throwing of waste into the streets and waterways. Transgressors 
were to be reported by the people residing in the precincts to the private 
secretary to the king. Only after it reached extraordinary proportions was the 
pollution made subject of the law. 

The situation became even graver during the industrialization period in the 19th 
century. Metallurgy and iron and steel works polluted the land, the water and 
the air. This is reflected in the novels of Charles Dickens and writings of 
Friedrich Engels that describe the pollution in London. In 1930, sixty-three 
people died of pollution in the Mosa Valley in Belgium. The situation in London, 
in 1952, was even more serious. Four thousand died of upper respiratory tract 
diseases because of man?s ravages of nature. 

The situation at present is hardly any rosier. There may not be such mass 
mortality, but according to the World Health Organization, more than one billion 
people are under threat from pollution. It is impossible to evaluate the degree 
of damage the public has suffered from throwing garbage and waste to the sea. 
This habit is still going on. Sea pollution that threatens the marine fauna and 
flora, and the settlement in their tissues of noxious substances, is thought to 
be the cause of many illnesses, including cancer. Carbon dioxide emissions from 
cars and factories also contribute to the so-called ?greenhouse? effect, and it 
is feared that drastic changes in global climate are causing catastrophic 
disasters. 

We see that environmental pollution is one of the greatest dangers for humankind. 
This reference to pollution in the Quran at a time when there was no 
environmental awareness is remarkably interesting. The Quran was not penned like 
books that are products of the human mind under the influence of social and 
sociological realities in due consideration of the current issues. It is sent by 
God, Lord of all times and beings. Knowledge unavailable at the time of its 
descent, problems of the past and of the future are all present in the Quran. 
Man is the author of his own destruction. The verse serves as a warning to 
redress his wrongdoings. The more we expend effort to counteract our past 
shortcomings, the better we can protect ourselves against catastrophes. Ecology 
must be our common concern. 

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