Tick tock! Tick tock! Time is up!
The crime of destroying the world is being committed.
Defendants, humans; plaintiff, the Earth!
We would have started with the lightest offense, but unfortunately, crimes are not categorized as light or heavy here. There isn’t a single culprit either; we all participated in these crimes in different ways.
First, let’s take the podium as those who damaged the ozone layer which protects the world from the harmful rays of the sun. We all owe an apology. Some of us enlarged the hole with deodorants, others with unnecessary vehicle usage.
Next, let’s bring to the stand those who massacre nature, forests, and animals, and those who witness it without even saying “Stop!” We veiled our eyes and inflicted harm on this wonderful nature. We took a saw and cut down trees, we mixed dirty water with seas and lakes. We killed animals for their fur, horns, teeth, and shells. We harmed them, with no hesitation. The word “wild” almost changed its meaning…
Then there are those who contribute to climate change, air, water, and environmental pollution. We have damaged the ecosystem to the point that seasons have turned upside down. Glaciers melted, plains and valleys dried up. The air became polluted, breathing became difficult. The color of those deep blue seas and lakes turned to black, and the water became undrinkable due to pollution.
After narrating these painful and cruel events, I can almost hear those saying, “Stop now!” Just like the Earth must have said when we were killing it without a second thought… Ah, I would have loved to stop, but the list is long. The crimes are extensive. We didn’t stop, even in the face of the world’s cries! We didn’t say “Enough!” then either.
Now it’s time to take the stage for those of us who are wasteful. How thoughtlessly we lived without appreciating what we had in our hands. We belittled, didn’t value what was on our plates. Perhaps we never considered that someone else hadn’t eaten the meal on our plate for weeks, months. We forgot to be grateful. We forgot to empathize. We said we were full, and poured the leftovers on our plates into the trash. Our wasting wasn’t limited to food either. There was no limit to the clothes in our wardrobes. If we saw something new, our hands would reach for it, just as our minds forgot about what was already in our closets. Who knows how many unused items occupied space in our homes.
Remember how the Honorable Abu Bakr, may God be pleased with him, lived such a life that he saved even the state salary he received and left it back in the state treasury when the Honorable Umar became the caliph after the Honorable Abu Bakr’s death. Do you remember how the Honorable Umar, may God be pleased with him, noticed that most of the money was put into a pot and said: “You left us with an unlivable world, O Abu Bakr!” After such a lifestyle, how did we come to live like this? How did we ignore as the number and variety of clothes in our closets and the food in our refrigerators increased?
There was no limit to the skyscrapers we built, but we still didn’t stop there. What about the wars we waged? The wrong paths we took as victims of our greed…
Hopefully, we will come to our senses, choose to live a more humane life and embrace nature, appreciate the blessings that our Lord has bestowed upon us without wasting and exceeding our limits, and start living in peace and harmony with our environment.
