Cultivating Faith: The Relationship Between Islam and Sustainable Agriculture in Rural Communities of American Muslims

Abstract

Many thinkers and activists have recognized the need for a paradigm shift within agricultural practices (Wirzba 2004; Shabbir et al. 2009). Religion has often been hypothesized as a source that can provide an alternative to the dominate paradigm (Oelschlaeger 1994; Leopold 1990). It has been argued that religious beliefs, practices and institutions can usher in a new paradigm by providing new discourses, creation stories and ideal communities, as well as providing social capital and new practices (Oelschlaeger 1994; Peterson 2005; Taylor 2007; Wirzba 2004). Through my historic and ethnographic study of small-scale American Muslim farms in the United States, I found that religious beliefs, practices and institutions have been an integral part of these communities, providing motivation, ethics, material support, communal practices and institutions, while also creating barriers to these projects. By being involved with farms that are an important part of their religious communities and motivated in part by concerns over food security, these American Muslims have become involved with food production systems and rural environments and communities. This has led them to become involved with governmental and non-governmental programs and policy making aimed at helping rural areas or small-scale farms, as well as allowed them to learn first hand about biodiversity and changes to the environment caused by humans. Although a small-scale study, these types of farms are likely important to the future of agriculture, making it also important to learn from this project when investigating other religious groups.