By the summer of 2001, most of Iranhad been suffering a three-year drought, theworst in recent history. Water rationing was inplace in Tehran and other cities, and largeproportions of the country's crops andlivestock were perishing. Yet many academicsand other experts in Iran insist that the watercrisis is only partly drought-related, andclaim that mismanagement of water resources isthe more significant cause. Underlying thisdiscussion is a complex of overlapping yetoften conflicting ethical systems – Iranian,Islamic, and modernist/industrialist – whichare available to inform water (...) policy in Iran. Areview of the various arguments about thenature of the crisis and the range of solutionsthat have been proposed, including precedentsfrom traditional Iranian water management andthe ethics of water use in Islamic law,suggests that Iran's own cultural heritageprovides alternatives to wholesale adoption ofWestern models. (shrink)

Animals have encountered cruelty and suffering throughout the ages. It is something perpetrated up till this day, particularly, in factory farms, animal laboratories, and even in the name of sports or amusement. However, since the second half of the twentieth century, there has been growing concerns for animal welfare and the protection of animal rights within the discourse of environmentalism, developed mainly in the West. Nevertheless, a recently developed Islamic Ecological Paradigm rooted in the classical Islamic traditions contests the ‘Western’ (...) monopoly of modern environmentalism, sug­gesting that there is much in Islamic traditions dealing with environmental issues in­cluding non-human animal species. IEP asserts that several centuries ago Islamic traditions significantly focused on and strongly advocated for animal welfare and animal rights. This paper explores and examines animal rights within the broader spectrum of Islamic environmentalism or Islamic eco-ethic. While the philosophical roots of IEP concerning animal rights date far back in seventh century, it can potentially make both ethical and educational contributions to the twenty-first century environmentalism and animal rights movements. (shrink)