Earth Equity News

Green Islamic Teaching in Indonesia. By Peter Gelling, GlobalPost, November 16, 2009. "Scattered on a forested hillside in a remote, almost pristine area of Central Java is the Ilmu Giri Pesantren, an Islamic boarding school that six years ago began offering a new kind of curriculum to a handful of local farmers. Today, students of Islam, young and old and from all over the country, are flocking to this tiny, mostly outdoor campus to hear its founder, Nasruddin Anshory, preach about a Muslim's ordained responsibility to protect the environment. 'As a Muslim,' he says to the students, who sit cross-legged in the dirt beneath the jungle canopy, feverishly taking notes, 'you must do something.' Ilmu Giri rose to prominence during the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, where Anshory was celebrated for his teachings. But environmentalism had been taught in Indonesian Islamic boarding schools, known as pesantren, since at least the 19th Century -- long before anyone paid attention to melting ice caps or rising sea levels."