Chapter 4

Fasād: A Near-End Ecology. The Devil at Heart.

To make sense of the extreme weather and ecological disasters, including the endangerment of honeybees, Bosnian Muslims re-read and retell the Revelation. While beekeepers and bee lovers share a popular understanding of climate change as a human responsibility they also refer to Quranic concepts and cosmological events to understand why is it that our species is capable and even keen on bringing the planet to ruin. Contemplating human nature and eco-cosmological relationships that connect humans to animals, jinn, plants, the Earth, and God they are speaking from within the tradition that gravely emphasizes human accountability for life-long acts but does not put God out of job in the world’s making and undoing. A key Quranic concept, fasād, stands for human tendency for mess-making that rakes havoc on the land and the seas. The chapter listens to the stories about fasād in the wake of two catastrophic weather events and their implications for the honey ecologies. To think along with Islamic cosmology presumes that we make room for strange species, such as jinn, and malevolent forces, the like of the devil himself, while all along turning an eye inwards, to the tendencies and upheavels of the human heart.