Nooresahar Ahmad, Bordon
To celebrate our 100-year anniversary, Lajna Ima’illah has pledged to plant 100,000 trees across the UK. This goal is indicative of the emphasis on sustainability which has always been important to Lajna Ima’illah; when it was established in 1922, a message of sustainability was at the heart of the aims and objectives for the organisation set up by His Holiness Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmood Ahmad, the second Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. This can be seen in the emphasis that His Holiness laid on the crucial role that Ahmadi women would play in moulding the future generations of the Community: ‘Apart from their own spiritual, intellectual and moral uplift, the future progress of the Jama’at is also greatly dependent upon the role played by our women…’
Sustainability, as I understand it, is an approach to our environment which favours longevity, and aims to organise our resources in such a way that they last as long, and do as little harm to the earth, as possible. The kind of sustainability outlined in the objectives devised by His Holiness in 1922 — which stress the importance of enhancing one’s own knowledge and the knowledge of other Lajna members, the responsibility in being teachers for the next generation, and the avoidance of discrimination based on income or age — explains how to sustain a moral and spiritual standard. It tells us that one of the key aims of Lajna is to make sure the future generations of the Ahmadiyya Community are able to continue to value and utilise the resources upon which it was founded: the teachings of the Qur’an, the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be on him), the writings of His Holiness Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (peace be on him), the Promised Messiah, and the invaluable guidance of his Caliphs of Khalifa who followed him.
Lajna’s tree planting is not only an apt symbol for the growth and care for future generations which is so integral to our ethos, but also an attempt at, if not reversing, then preventing some of the damage being done to our planet. In accordance with Quranic teachings, it is an integral part of our faith to care for the planet in a sustainable manner: “And the stemless plants and the trees humbly submit to His will. And the heaven He has raised high and set up the measure, that you may not transgress the measure. So weigh all things with justice and fall not short of the measure.” (55: 7-10)
Unfortunately, environmental sustainability has not yet been achieved. We are all familiar with the ongoing consequences of the climate crisis — familiar with the new ferocity of the heat of British summers, aware of the bushfires in Australia, the floods in Pakistan. It is a crisis which has been brought about by prioritising wealth over sustainability, over the “measure” outlined in the Qur’an. It has also been brought about by injustice. The climate crisis is a central example of injustice; richer countries are the leading contributors to harmful emissions, yet the devastating consequences are felt more keenly in poorer nations. An article in the Guardian from 2017 pointed out that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions — the consequences of a select group of people’s actions will, unjustly, impact the entire globe.
The solution to gross injustice is a prioritisation of absolute justice, the importance of which has been highlighted in the Qur’an: “Verily, Allah requires you to abide by justice, and to treat with grace, and give like the giving of kin to kin…” (16:91). These principles are the ones which Lajna have been striving to follow for 100 years, and inshAllah will continue to strive for — whether through planting a tree, uplifting a fellow Lajna member, or nurturing the next generations. As the fourth Caliph wrote, if man could “chart a course for himself which [would] never disregard the dictates of justice… his evolution would not come to a halt. It would continue to move forward slowly but constantly, raising man from lower orders to higher orders. The only difference between this and the previous evolution is that while the previous evolution was physical and sensual, the latter one will be moral and spiritual.”[1]
[1] Absolute Justice, Kindness and Kinship: The Three Creative Principles, pp. 19-20.
Voice of British Muslim Women 
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