“The Earth is a Mosque,” and everything in it is sacred – I learned this basic tenet of Islam from my father. He was raised in Queens, spent summers in Virginia, and always loved and respected the natural world. He took it upon himself to share this appreciation with his own children. I spent my early childhood in Queens and Brooklyn. My brother and I used to think the entire world was a sea of concrete buildings. My father upended that reality the day he took us to Bear Mountain. Just north of New York City, Bear Mountain is known as a hiker’s paradise. On that trip, we were Black Muslim city kids hiking in “the country” for the first time. What I recall from that day was moss growing on rocks, mushrooms on rotting wood, and drinking my first juice box - the kind you poke a straw into. When it was time for the afternoon prayer, my father stopped to pray. My brother and I asked him where he was going to pray. He pointed to the ground, to a small area that he had brushed free of twigs and leaves. Until that day, prayer for us had always been something done at home or in the mosque. Our mosque, Masjid At-Taqwa, was an oasis of Islam in the heart of struggling Bedford-Stuyvesant (better known as Bed-Stuy), Brooklyn. The Imam of Masjid At-Taqwa, the respected Siraj Wahaj, later became the first Muslim to ever recite a prayer in a session of Congress. My father was one of the first 25 brothers involved in establishing Masjid At-Taqwa. To us, the mosque meant proud black families creating community and praying together.

On Bear Mountain, as we prepared to kneel down in prayer, my father related a Hadith, a saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), “Wherever you may be at the time of prayer, you may pray, for it (the Earth) is all a mosque.” At that instant, I understood for the first time: the Earth is a mosque; a mosque is sacred; therefore, the Earth is sacred. That moment of prayer on the mountain, thanks to the Hadith my father relayed, transformed the way that I would see the world forever. As an adult, my contemplation of the notion that “the Earth is a mosque” led to my discovery of the core message of this book – that Islam, the world’s second largest religion, provides a helpful lens to prompt action among Muslims and anyone else concerned about saving the Earth. This lens encompasses a variety of principles – the Oneness of creation, stewardship of the planet and the trust that comes with it, justice, balance, and the signs of God. All of these principles point to the same well-kept secret: that Islam teaches a deep love of the planet, because loving the planet means loving ourselves and loving our Creator. That is to say, Islam teaches that we are all one. “The Earth is a mosque” is another way of saying we are all part of the wonderful fabric of creation.