The Human Cohesion Project — 3 Apr 2023

Originally published at Medium

One of the Prophets in the Islamic tradition is Nuh (referred to as Noah in the Bible). The story of Noah’s Ark is deeply embedded in the mythology of the Abrahamic faiths. In the Quran too, there is mention of Nuh’s efforts to swerve people away from idolatry and bring them back into submission to God. Meanwhile, he also built a ship in preparation for the flood, even as he was mocked by people, including community leaders and one of his own sons. The ship was loaded with a pair of every species (though some commentaries by Prophetic descendants interpret this to mean eight animals). Eventually, when the deluge happens, the ones on the ship survive while others on ground perish.

Mythology, when not contextualised, loses value as it begins to seem like fantasy. However, when interpreted against an appropriate context, it can offer timeless lessons. Those of us whose work involves climate action often tend to look at mythology from this perspective, particularly when we work at the intersection of faith and climate change. If we look at the descriptions in the Quran (or for that matter the Bible), the descriptions before Nuh’s time is about the world turning to worship various idols (symbolic of various -isms and ideologies), and thus being anchored in materialism. Nuh’s warnings are essentially around people going overboard with these various divisive ideologies that make them forget their common origins and shared ecology (one God). As people mock and dismiss his warnings, he continues to build a ship to preserve as many life forms as he can, just as we seem to be shooting seeds into space, as attempted in the recent years by NASA and IAEA, to save what we can of the planet. We’re also preparing, with advances in space travel, to shoot some humans into space, with Orbital Assembly’s Pioneer Station likely to be launched by 2025.

There are several Nuhs on our planet right now, who sense, as Prophet Nuh did, the dangers of living our lives separate from nature. They’re attempting to nudge us back in several ways, while helping to prepare for an eventuality that may be cataclysmic. Are we listening to those prophets (isn’t that what being prophetic is about — to sense reality, to name it, and to respond to it with courage and honesty?)?

Ramadan Kareem. May we tune in, to the Prophet within.

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