This year’s Festival of Faiths is underway in Louisville. The next several days feature a variety of speakers talking about this year’s theme: compassion.
One of those speakers is Nana Firman, the Muslim Outreach Director for non-profit GreenFaith. I spoke with Firman about how she uses the Koran to teach Muslims about the importance of caring for the environment and raising awareness about climate change. Listen to our conversation in the player above.
On how the Koran encourages Muslims to be good stewards of the environment:
“In the Islamic teaching, we have a lot of reminder in terms of protecting the earth and caring for the earth. For example, one of the verses in the Koran, our holy book, mentions that as human beings, we are the guardians, the caretakers of this earth.”
On how she makes the case that Muslims have a duty to combat climate change:
“But then I present to them, you know, every one of us can do something to tackle this climate change, first it’s like from ourselves, individually, because climate change is not just a scientific or environmental issue, but it’s also a moral and ethical issue.”
On how GreenFaith works with all types of faith, and encourages them to work together on environmental issues:
“Because we are all in this thing together, no matter what you believe. We are all experiencing the same thing, and we have to work together and hopefully, God willing, when we work together, we are going to go faster for the change.”
