{tinyurl.com/AZerocc} This post is based on a talk prepared for a National Conference on SDGs: Catalysts for Economic Transformation in Pakistan on Feb 29-Mar 1, organized by the Economics Department of University of Lahore. The original talk, in the video below, has been revised and updated in the blog post which follows it:
At first glance, industrialization seems the primary culprit of our climate crisis, driving rampant overproduction and overconsumption. However, these are merely the visible outcomes of a deeper, more profound shift in thought ushered in by the European Enlightenment. This pivotal era fundamentally redefined our relationship with the planet, transitioning from a view of Earth as a nurturing entity to a resource for exploitation. This blog post aims to unpack this transformation in thought, and how it paved the way for the environmental challenges we face today. To solve the crisis requires another revolution in thought, and foundations for such a revolution are provided by Islamic epistemology.
The European Enlightenment was deeply influenced by centuries of religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. It became clear to all that a peaceful society could not be built on theological foundations. Political Science was the first of secular social sciences to emerge. Theology had been universally considered as the foundation for all knowledge. Creating a secular social sience required a revolutionary change in epistemology. Tradition, intuition, emotion, and lived experience had been considered as reliable sources of knowledge. The European Enlightenment discarded everything known until then, and sought to rebuild the entire stock of human knowledge from scratch, trusting only in objective facts and logic.
The Enlightenment brought a significant metaphorical shift in how we perceive Earth, from ‘Mother Earth’ to a ‘dead machine.’ This shift, rooted in the widespread acceptance of Newtonian physics, marked a transition from a symbiotic and nurturing relationship with the planet to one focused on exploitation for power and profits. This change in metaphor is intrinsically linked to the epistemological shift of the Enlightenment, symbolizing a broader transformation in our understanding and interaction with the natural world, from mutual respect and coexistence to control and utilization.
The climate crisis we are grappling with is fundamentally a crisis of knowledge, an epistemological error at its core. To address the environmental challenges we face, it’s imperative to redefine our concept of knowledge. We need to alter our ways of knowing the world and reshape our relationships with all creations. This requires a monumental shift, a reversal of the ‘Great Transformation’ in European thought that has long influenced our understanding of nature and our place within it. For a more detailed summary of ‘The Great Transformation’, see The Great Transformation.
How can we reverse the Great Transformation? This task requires us to undo the epistemological shift brought about by the European Enlightenment. Merely rejecting Enlightenment thought is not sufficient. We must also reconstruct the accumulated human knowledge of recent centuries upon sound epistemological foundations. Islam offers such foundations. The final revelation of God to humanity imparts us with knowledge of unassailable truth. While Enlightenment philosophers rightly discarded Christianity, recognizing its corruption and role in perpetuating conflict, they overlooked the potential for other sources of pure, revealed knowledge.
Islamic epistemology presents a stark contrast to Enlightenment views. All of God’s creation is a family, and those who serve His family are beloved by God. The Quran teaches us that the heart is not merely a physical organ but an instrument of cognition, capable of moral discernment when purified through ‘Tazkiya’, the cleansing of one’s inner self. This purification is key to moral cognition, fostering a profound connection with the universe and instilling a natural abhorrence for harming the environment or any of God’s creations. Environmental degradation arises from the Enlightenment epistemology which ignores the heart and soul as sources of knowledge. This leads to individualism, which creates isolation and loneliness, breaking our connections with the environment and other individuals. Many studies show that these connections are the central sources of human happiness.
To repair the damage done by Enlightenment epistemology, we must have a deeper understanding of the sources of their errors. The most fundamental mistake is the idea that we can arrive at certain knowledge starting from a position of complete ignorance. Logical reasoning requires a starting premise to reach any conclusion. This mistake is clearly illustrated by the most famous line of reasoning “I think, therefore I am” from Descartes, the father of Western Philosophy. Descartes claimed to derive his own existence as completely certain, starting from a position of complete ignorance. But the existence of “I” is already assumed in the premise “I think”, so the conclusion that “I am” follows trivially.
The Enlightenment philosophers were trapped into making the same mistake. Since they claimed to start from zero, and build objective, value-free knowledge, they had to make HIDDEN assumptions. In particular, the hidden moral foundations upon which knowledge was built within the Enlightenment tradition, are toxic. It is this intellectual tradition which dominates university education today, and it makes false claims to objective and value-free knowledge. Post-modernists have been able to see past these claims, but they have made their own mistakes, and have not been influential in changing the Western educational paradigms. For instance, Michel Foucault argues that modern human sciences (biological, psychological, social) purport to offer universal scientific truths about human nature that are, in fact, often mere expressions of ethical and political commitments of a particular society. On deeper analysis, what passes for knowledge, and is stated as a universal scientific truth, is actually a defense of existing power configurations.
In attacking Enlightenment epistemology, our efforts must focus on revealing these concealed assumptions, and exposing their flaws. Since the Enlightenment was launched in response to religious wars in Europe, a critical foundational assumption is rejection of God. This is masked as “rational” by an epistemology which claims to believe only in what can be seen or derived from logic. However, this apparently reasonable stance leads to tortuous complexity when inferences to unobservables are admitted in physics, but rejected in religion. For example, it is permissible to believe in dark matter which is unobservable, because it accounts for the observable motions of the stars. But when we argue that the creation of a universe at a moment in time requires a creator, this inference is rejected as “unscientific”. The Philosophy of Science is the name of centuries of efforts to distinguish between religion and science. Early in the 20th Century, the logical positivists claimed success in this project. They purported to demonstrate that science leads to truth about external reality, while religion is mere superstition and ignorance. See The Emergence of Logical Positivism for more details. However, later in the 20th century, philosophers came to see the deep flaws in their arguments. A recent textbook entitled “What is this thing called Science?” documents how confusion reigns supreme. The Philosophy of Science has set itself the impossible task of rejecting inferences to the existence of God, while being certain about inferences which lead to the existence of electromagnetic forces.
One of the settled foundational premises of secular modernity is the rejection of God. This axiom cannot be disputed or discussed, but it has extremely harsh consequences. It is immediate that the universe was created by an accident. Life must have been created by an accident. Man is just another animal like others. Society is governed by the ferocious competition of the laws of the jungle. The only moral principle is the survival of the fittest. By definition, the scope of science is limited to the external universe which surrounds us. It cannot contemplate events prior to existence of the universe, since these are completely outside the possibility of observation. When we take science to be the only valid source of knowledge, questions regarding the existence of God cannot be discussed, ruling out the possibility of contemplating alternatives to this bleak view of meaninglessness of our human lives.
This axiomatic rejection of God has major consequences for how we build human societies. If there is no afterlife and no Judgement Day, then we should seek pleasure and power in this life. Individualism and Hedonism are natural consequences. Competition replaces Cooperation, and Greed is preferred over Generosity. These are ugly principles on which to build society. The consequences of these choices are visible in a world which fits the description of the war of all against all. These acids dissolve family and community, the fabric of society, and lead to loneliness, depression, and suicides, as well as war against nature. For the Islamic alternative, see Lecture 2 on Gratitude, Contentment, and Trust in my online course on A New Approach to Islamic Economics
With all this background, we can come back to original question. How does this epistemological shift to secular modernity create the climate crisis, and what is proposed line of attack to counter this problem?
In the wake of recognizing the limitations of secular modernity and its foundational assumption that discards the divine, we encounter the question: What fills the void left by the absence of God in our understanding of the world and our place in it? The secular narrative has led to a worldview centered on materialism and empirical validation, sidelining the profound questions about existence, purpose, and morality that have occupied human thought for millennia.
The repudiation of a higher purpose and the embrace of materialism have not only shaped our social structures but also our individual pursuits. In the absence of a transcendental goal, the pursuit of personal gain overshadows the collective welfare. The shift from communal to individualistic values fuels a society driven by consumption, where success is often measured by accumulation rather than contribution.
However, the consequences of such a worldview are not restricted to social dynamics alone. They extend to how we engage with our environment. If life’s purpose is bound to material success and personal gratification, then the natural world becomes a mere backdrop for human activity, valued only for what it can provide rather than what it inherently is. This utilitarian approach has facilitated an unprecedented exploitation of natural resources, leading to ecological imbalances and a climate in peril.
In the search for a more holistic understanding of our world, one that integrates the spiritual with the empirical, we turn towards alternative epistemologies. Islamic thought provides such an alternative, offering a framework where knowledge is not divorced from the divine, where the material is interconnected with the spiritual, and where the pursuit of knowledge is not just for worldly gain but for a greater, more profound understanding of our place in the cosmos.
The challenge before us is not merely to adapt to new environmental policies or technologies but to undertake a more ambitious journey—a reevaluation of the very foundations upon which our knowledge and society rest. It calls for a re-engagement with the spiritual, an acknowledgment of the divine, and a reconstitution of our moral compass, informed by the rich heritage of Islamic thought.
As we consider the path forward, we must ask ourselves how we can construct a future that respects the delicate balance of our world, that recognizes the intrinsic value of all life, and that seeks to align our earthly endeavors with a higher purpose. The path is complex and requires not just a change in action but a transformation in thought—a return to an epistemology that sees the world not as a machine to be mastered but as a creation to be cherished.
An Islamic WorldView 