JakartaPost-July 31, 2022
The country’s top Muslim leaders have formed a congress geared toward raising awareness about the impacts of climate change and mobilizing support from the country’s millions of Muslims. The forum, called the Muslim Congress for a Sustainable Indonesia, was held at Jakarta’s Istiqlal Grand Mosque, the largest mosque in the country, on Thursday, with a treatise that detailed its recommendations handed to Vice President Ma’ruf Amin – a former Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) leader – on Friday. The treatise stressed that climate change has already had a significant impact on all business sectors and people’s way of life. It called for systematic environmental solutions that are based on Islamic values and rooted in local wisdom, adding that they should be financed by Islamic community funds, such as alms and waqf (religious endowment). The treatise also highlighted the importance of religious institutions, such as mosques and Islamic boarding schools, in cultivating environmentally friendly behavior and conducting studies and initiatives. “I urge clerics and Muslim leaders to play an active role in conveying issues related to environmental problems. I support these recommendations and [urge] to follow them with concrete actions,” Maruf said on Friday. Its members include those from the MUI, the country’s top Muslim clerical body, as well as from the Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) and the Muhammadiyah, which are the country’s largest Muslim organizations. The congress also included scholars from Gadjah Mada University’s Department of Politics and Governance, and the Istiqlal Global Fund (IGF), a philanthropic body run by the Istiqlal Mosque. A 2020 survey by the Communications and Information Ministry, for instance, revealed that Indonesians placed the highest trust in information sourced from religious figures. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/indonesia/2022/07/31/top-muslim-leaders-agree-to-raise-environmental-awareness.html
