Un-masking environmental problems in a covid world: exploring possibilities through “transcendent nature” in the Quran, medieval Islamic thought and “the Sufi way”

الملخص EN

The environmental problems we face today because of the COVID-19 pandemic have their roots in irreconcilable perceptions of nature that pervade our modern culture.

In the past few decades, literary ecocriticism has leaned towards the perception of the concept of transcendent nature as an expression of unequal power relationships, in which the authority of a subject is endorsed against an intimidating other.

Different ancient cultures and belief systems have placed different emphasis on the place of nature in their lives and arts.

Ecocritics argued that the problem at the heart of such approaches lies in their insistence on dichotomous thinking, which severs the human world from the natural world.

Islamic perceptions of nature in the Quran and the writings of medieval Islamic sages can be interpreted as displaying the roots of a concept of an interrelated cosmos which supports the viability of a transcendent perception of Nature.