2025_02_22_Maha Kumbh Mela

Indonesian Muslim leader addresses international summit at the world’s largest gathering of religious pilgrims, the Maha Kumbh Mela

“The Islamic approach to Spiritual Ecology is both idealistic and pragmatic, seeking to bring human well-being and environmental protection into alignment rather than conflict, in order to nurture the environment and ensure human flourishing.”

~ KH. Ulil Abshar Abdalla
Vice Chairman, Nahdlatul Ulama Central Board

PRAYAGRAJ, Uttar Pradesh, India, 21 – 23 February 2025 — One of Indonesia’s leading Muslim scholars, KH. Ulil Abshar Abdalla, delivered an address describing the R20 Spiritual Ecology movement at a Global Summit on Development and Sustainability held amidst a gathering of approximately 400 million Hindus, as reported by The New York Times.

The scion of a long line of Javanese ulama (religious scholars), Kyai Ulil observed:

It is particularly significant and auspicious that you have invited me, a Muslim religious scholar, to address this august summit during the largest religious gathering on earth, the Maha Kumbh Mela. I understand that over the past 40 days, hundreds of millions of Hindu devotees have visited Prayagraj to bathe at the junction of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati rivers.

Nahdlatul Ulama, or NU for short, has over 100 million followers and 28,000 madrassahs. As Muslims, our entire worldview — including our response to environmental problems — should ideally originate from within, or at least be consistent with, the teachings of ahl al-sunnah wa-al-jama‘ah (Sunni Islam).

Hence, one may describe Spiritual Ecology as a profoundly Islamic response to a complex array of threats facing both humanity and our physical environment. For Spiritual Ecology is not only grounded in Islamic theology, spirituality, and jurisprudence. It is also consistent with the religious beliefs held by most of the world’s two billion Muslims, who constitute approximately 25 percent of the global population.

Moreover, Spiritual Ecology’s approach is applicable to people of all faiths, who constitute the single largest demographic within the human family — estimated to exceed 80% of the world’s population. This is because Spiritual Ecology is grounded in universal principles and ethical imperatives that are found within the traditions of every religious community. Hence, the principles of Spiritual Ecology may be embraced with the motivation and commitment of genuine religious faith.

His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Shankara Vijayendra Saraswati Swamigal performs sacred ablutions in the Ganges. Revered by Hinduisim’s 1.2 billion adherents as among the faith’s top leaders, His Holiness heads the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham religious complex in Tamil Nadu, South India.

For those who have a spiritual worldview, this approach is not only more legitimate — but also more likely to succeed in actually protecting the environment — than a purely secular, top-down ideology that seeks to impose uniform macroeconomic policies through government fiat upon religious communities worldwide….

Muslims believe that God granted mankind a divine mandate to serve as His vicegerents on earth (khalīfah fī-al-arḍ), and that this mandate includes human beings’ dominion over nature. This dominion, however, is only legitimate insofar as humans are both conscious of, and act in accordance with, God’s will — which prescribes that human beings act with universal love and compassion, encompassing every aspect of creation.

Within Sufism this state of spiritual realization is called al-insān al-kāmil, or the complete human being. Such a spiritually accomplished individual possesses the wisdom necessary to act as a responsible steward for God’s creation, aligned with Divine Will.

Ideally, this assumes a practical form through law, and Islamic law (known as fiqh) is regulated by a calculus of benefit and harm, or “maṣlaḥah” and “mafsadah” in Arabic. A spiritually perfected human being, or khalīfah, is capable of legislating in a way that maximizes human well-being while minimizing harm to society and the natural world that surrounds us.

KH. Ulil Abshar Abdalla, Vice Chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, prepares to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers during the Maha Kumbh Mela

We are well aware, within Nahdlatul Ulama, that the climate change/net zero agenda zealously promoted by many Western governments, media outlets, and NGOs is directly or indirectly linked to a large number of problematic developments throughout the world. These include economically ruinous efforts to replace the electricity generation and fuel distribution networks of entire nations; the rapidly accelerating deindustrialization of Germany; rising fuel poverty across Western Europe; government mandates to restrict the use of fertilizer and thereby reduce agricultural output; massive protests by farmers across Europe; systematic efforts to prevent the generation of low-cost electricity throughout the Global South; economic collapse in Sri Lanka following passage of an anti-chemical fertilizer act by its Parliament; and a hollowing-out of the West’s economic capacity to help defend and sustain the post-WWII rules-based international order, at a time when its moral authority has also been severely eroded.

By disregarding maṣlaḥah and mafsadah — or a benefit and harm calculus — militantly secular ideology and its widely hailed “net zero” approach neither protect the environment nor human beings. In fact, they often exacerbate the very ecological damage that they claim to prevent, for in the absence of a compelling spiritual or ethical motivation, wealthy societies are more likely to prioritize environmental protection than are failed states or undeveloped nations striving to escape poverty.

In its present form, the (climate change/net zero-focused) environmental movement exhibits the immaturity of al-insān al-nāqiṣ, or the incomplete (i.e., spiritually deficient) human being, whose lack of wisdom causes mafsadah by harming God’s creation, of which humans are an integral part. Significantly, the center of gravity of this hypertrophied, militantly secular environmental movement lies in the West, and is primarily embraced by people who have abandoned the traditional faith of their ancestors.

The Islamic approach to Spiritual Ecology is both idealistic and pragmatic, seeking to bring human well-being and environmental protection into alignment rather than conflict, in order to nurture the environment and ensure human flourishing.

As you can see from this brief summary, Spiritual Ecology has theological, spiritual, and legal (fiqh) dimensions — all of which rest upon God’s divine mandate for human beings to serve as His vicegerents on earth….

In Islam, spiritual awakening is a necessary but not sufficient condition to protect the environment. Divine Will should be made manifest in the world through action. This physical dimension is addressed by fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence.

Unlike utopian secular ideologies that seek to prevent any and all damage to the environment regardless of the cost to human beings, Islamic law is pragmatic. It recognizes that all human actions occur within a specific context, with benefits and costs that must be carefully weighed to achieve an optimal outcome. This maṣlaḥah/mafsadah calculus grounds Islamic law in the contextual reality of actual human societies. By doing so, it seeks to avoid the pitfalls encountered by militant secular ideologies which — at their most extreme — are prepared to sacrifice human beings in the pursuit of a messianic, utopian mirage.

It is our firm conviction, as religious believers, that God has ennobled the children of Adam and implanted within our hearts and souls the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil. The voice of conscience should govern our relationships both vertically and horizontally — that is, our relationship with God, with other human beings, and with nature as a whole.

This is the fundamental premise of Spiritual Ecology, which seeks to foster balance within nature and society for the benefit of all.

Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

(“May the peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.”)

Read KH. Ulil Abshar Abdalla’s complete speech.

President of India Foundation Dr. Ram Madhav addresses the Kumbh Global Summit on Development and Sustainability, which was organized in collaboration with the Government of Uttar Pradesh