ISLAM, AS A LIVING TRADITION, CALLS ON ITS practitioners to commit to a life of virtue and excellence with clear guidance from the Qur’an and the perfect example of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). One may argue that the shariah, or corpus of Islamic law, is a manual on ethical living that teaches best practices in all realms of human concern, such as personal worship, familial relations, and commerce.

“As a concept, ethical living and learning centers around justice, where the end goal remains the capacity and willingness to judiciously transact one’s life with God and His creation.”

As seen through an Islamic worldview, healthy, functioning communities ought to be based on their capacity to do the mundane with sacred sensibilities, which fuel ethical action in substance. The human being was made for, and tasked with, the responsibility of caretaking (stewarding) and cultivation (betterment) of the creation—not its self-indulgent consumption and destruction born from casual indifference or disinterest. Allah Most High tells us in the Qur’an that, “He is the One Who has placed you as successors on earth and elevated some of you in rank over others, so He may test you with what He has given you” (Qur’an 6:165). Thus, our engagement with consumption should be purposeful and measured within the context of what we have been charged to do by our Creator. As the Qur’an warns us, “Indeed, the wasteful are brothers of the devils, and ever has Satan been to his Lord ungrateful” (Qur’an 7:27).

Today, we witness an inversion of this reality where in the United States alone nearly 38% of food is wasted annually, equivalent to approximately 145 billion meals. Contrast this to the massive food insecurity gripping many countries around the world, most notably Sudan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and now Palestine. The Malaysian scholar and academic Dr. ‘Adi Setia provides commentary to address this crisis:

“…a worldly thing of facility and utility is sought only insofar and to the extent it serves and facilitates some deeper, trans-worldly purpose, and such a purpose for the believer is well-defined in the light of both divine revelation and prophetic practice. Such a positively purposive seeking is prudent and judicious since it preempts excess, waste, and injustice (to oneself or others). We all know that too much of a good thing, even if halal or permissible, is bad and hence, the excessive can be oppressive when the original purpose for which a thing is sought is lost, overlooked, or exceeded. This is the paradox of the fact that when we acquire more and more of something we find less and less meaningful use of it. Because the aim, objective, purpose, and end of any economic activity is well-defined in the light of the guidance of both sound reason and true revelation, anything that exceeds, belies or defeats that purpose will be considered extravagant, wasteful, and meaningless, or even sinful, and thereby, ethically, morally and formally and legally proscribed.” [1]

In our efforts to revive the divine mandates of excellence in stewardship and cultivation, Zaytuna College, in partnership with the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of North America (IFANCA), launched the Zaytuna College Center for Ethical Living and Learning (ZCELL) in 2017. IFANCA, with its commitment to halal and tayyib practices, has played an indispensable role in helping to realize a vision that we hope serves as a replicable model for Muslim communities and other faith and ethically-based communities.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, President of Zaytuna College, says, “The main idea behind ZCELL is for us, as a community, to get back to more natural ways of producing food, especially fresh food. The idea is to reconnect people to food growth and production, so they actually witness the miracle of food.”

This partnership supports the permaculture garden that is now in its fifth year of development with an incredible impact on the College community. Students now have regular opportunities to work in the garden, which allows them to not only understand the permaculture design principles, but more importantly, put into practice what they learn in the classroom: ethics and virtue in action. The upper campus project site has over twenty-five fruit trees and shrubs of a broad diversity including olives, figs, peaches, plums, avocados, citrus, grapes, passionfruit, mulberries, persimmons, pomegranates, loquats, blueberries, currents, and gooseberries among others. The garden also has over twenty hexagonal raised beds where a variety of vegetables grow. Plans are underway to expand the garden to almost three acres over the next two years, God-willing. The goal is to supply the upper campus kitchen with produce to be prepared into meals for students and staff, and the surplus production serves as gifts to friends and neighbors of the College by way of fresh produce and value-added products.

Zaytuna students spend most of their day in classrooms with rigorous study of both the Western and Muslim canons. During their break periods, they have designated time to spend in the garden and apply what they’re learning in a very direct, hands-on approach. For many, it’s one of the highlights of their day. The acts of planting, nurturing, and harvesting the earth bring a sense of peace and purpose that cannot be found in textbooks alone.

“We want to see our students working with their hands, cultivating the land, and producing the food they eat, appreciating this divine sustenance even more. I’m hoping to see most of what the students eat to come directly from the campus,” explains Shaykh Hamza.

This past spring semester, we’ve re-established the presence of honeybees adjacent to the garden. Several swarms of bees – a few of which we’ve been able to capture – have periodically emerged, indicating that they are producing broods of new bees to start additional colonies. A honey harvest has just now begun, producing exquisitely tasting honey that we hope will continue in copious amounts.

IFANCA’s contributions have not only been instrumental in the expansion of the garden, but it also supports the biannual Permaculture Design Certificate course (PDC), which allows for the greater community to participate in the project. With almost one hundred graduates from the PDC course, Zaytuna is now viewed as a leader in teaching the concepts of ethical living and learning in the Muslim community.

The recent purchase of a 17-acre ranch located just ten minutes from the upper campus, also supported by IFANCA, provides us the opportunity to expand the permaculture garden project by integrating the husbanding of livestock, which will augment our productive capabilities and help to rapidly recover the ecological good health of the site. This is an aspect of the prophetic example that warrants careful attention and emphasis. The Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) has indicated that the cultivation and beautification of the earth is a praiseworthy and ethical act:

“Whoever revives dead land, for him is [to be found] reward in it; and whatever any creature seeking food eats of it shall be reckoned as charity from him.” [2]

 “There is no Muslim who plants a tree or sows a field, and a human, bird, or animal eats from it, but it shall be reckoned as charity from him.”[3]

 “The cultivator of land is trading with his Lord.” [4]

The ranch site is also slated to house facilities for a sacred sports program to further the experiential learning opportunities at Zaytuna College.
The American poet and writer, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer Wendell Berry once wrote: “The preserver of abundance is excellence.” [5]  This is an understanding entirely consistent with an Islamic worldview.  It is through the demonstration of our ability to exist in the world as ethical stewards of God’s great blessings that we may witness the reward of abundance. This is the business, stock, and trade of ZCELL. We invite you to visit our campus and experience the Zaytuna garden, where we strive to revive the spirit of ethical living and learning.

For more information, please visit:

www.zaytuna.edu/zcell

References:

  1. ‘Adi Setia, “The Meaning of ‘Economy’ & The Economic Life: QAṢD, IQTIṢĀD, MAQṢID, TADBĪR AL-MANZIL”, pgs. 4-5
  2. Mishkat al-Masabih., vol.1, p. 600, no.1916; Kitab al-Kharaj, p. 82, no. 259; Taxation in Islam, vol.1, p.64; Also see Kitab al-Amwal, pp. 285-286, no. 800.
  3. Mishkat al-Masabih, vol. 1, p. 597, no.1900; Also see Yahya Ibn Adam, p.82, no. 260; tr. Ben Shemesh, 64; and Nur al-Islam, vol.3, p.86, tr. in Eng. supplement vol. 3, nos.7, 8, p.24. Nur al-Din `Ali Abu Bakr al-Haythami, pp. 67-68, transmitted by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and by al-Tabarani in al-Mu`jam al-Kabir, on the authority of Abu’l-Darda.
  4. ‘Adi Setia and Nicholas Mahdi Lock (eds.). Right Livelihood and the Common Good: Three Classics from the Islamic Tradition. 2013. ISBN 978-967-0149-39-4, p.68
  5. Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

  

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf currently serves as president of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, the first accredited Muslim liberal arts college in the United States, with both Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs. A proponent of the traditional liberal arts and great books education in both the Western and Muslim traditions, he has translated, authored, and coauthored numerous publications, including scholarly books and articles as well as papers on major current areas of ethical concern.