A religious discourse on water and environmental conservation issues: An interfaith approach

Abstract

This research aims to discover areas of agreement among major religious faiths regarding the interaction between humans and the environment, and to assess the impact of these shared perspectives on environmental preservation in selected countries. The religions under examination are: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The primary viewpoints examined are: (1) Domination, where humans are considered superior in creation and utilise natural resources as required; (2) Stewardship, where humans are entrusted with authority over creation and have the responsibility of utilising natural resources; (3) Empathy, nature is affected by humans’ appalling behaviour. Furthermore, the research problem focussed on how religious approaches paid attention to water and environmental conservation issues. The research results indicated that water was public property. In addition, the Sunnah (prophetic tradition) has also included several principles that contributed to guiding people to conserve water. The Sunnah provided several legal steps in water conservation, and Islam had ordered the preservation of natural resources from the beginning.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This research contributes to providing insight to the readers that these approaches were not necessarily contradictory, but could be considered complementary in some cases. Their actual impacts on water conservation and the environment should be further investigated.