As weather disasters ravage much of the Muslim world, from record heat in the Middle East to devastating floods in Pakistan, Earth Day and Eid al-Fitr falling on the same weekend feel kismet for some American Muslims.
“My faith is the main reason I have for climate optimism,” said Zahra Biabani, 24, an American organizer and author of Pakistani and Indian descent. «When we look at how much of our text is about nature and its appreciation and care, that can be a really powerful tool. Protecting people and things that can’t speak for themselves is the purest thing you can do.»
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the month of Ramadan and is determined by the sighting of a new moon. It’s a joyous moment, and Biabani hopes it can also be a powerful moment of reflection.
The new, young faces fighting climate change want their peers to know that while their mission is urgent, it doesn’t have to be depressing. They’re working to rebrand their message across social media, celebrities, and the holidays, and going online has helped engage a new generation from home.
Saad Amer, 28, is a Pakistani American climate activist who has spearheaded this effort and has even taken it to the White House and the United Nations. With tens of thousands of followers on Instagram and Twitter, he knows Gen Z and Alpha where they are.
In recent years, he has become something of an influencer himself, regularly going viral for his work. He poses on red carpets with movie stars and YouTubers, but he also doesn’t shy away from taking to the streets with a megaphone and rallying voters during election seasons.
love will stand on a lectern in the White House one day and lead a protest outside your gates next.
“The key is authenticity,” said Amer, also a founder of the social impact group Justice Environment. «I will never compromise who I am to do the work that I do.»
Most Gen Zers have grown up with climate change being discussed as a pressing reality in their lives, he said. But for young people of color, it goes deeper.
Muslim activists with relatives in the hardest-hit areas say they are intimately connected to climate justice.
“Communities across the Muslim world are disproportionately affected by the weather,” Amer said. “People who have never gone through a proper education or have heard the term climate change described in their first-person accounts of how things have changed exactly in accordance with what science had predicted.”
Watching family members back home suffer the consequences of more volatile temperatures, natural disasters and crop shortages, these activists say they bring a perspective that many others cannot understand. Climate language at home often looks very different from that in the US, they say, and the diaspora can help bridge the gap.
“My family in Pakistan is not thinking of changing plastic to reusable materials. They are more thinking about why their house keeps flooding,” said Biabani, who has also amassed thousands of followers for his writing and activism.
Coming from South Asia, caring for the Earth and its communities comes naturally, Amer said.
He cited locally sourced food and clothing, both of which are much more commonly found walking the streets of cities on the subcontinent.
“Even if you open my mom’s spice cabinet, all the spices are contained in old jars that are reused,” she said.
But while the brunt of the impacts of climate change may be felt in the global south, Amer wants people to know that the United States is not that far away.
“This is not just a developing world problem,” he said. “This is not just something inherent to Pakistan. This is something that is also true for the United States. We just do a much better job of hiding it. … We are using our atmosphere as a sewer, in the same way that we use our land as literal garbage dumps.”
With more awareness and more diaspora youth ready to fight, activists say they can see a renewed sense of purpose and joy in the movement. There’s always a win somewhere, they said, and social media makes those stories much more visible.
Eid falls around the same time as Earth Day offers this growing coalition a chance to do exactly that, Amer said: reflect on their victories, be in community with one another and move into the next phase refreshed.
“Eid is really a time of joy and celebration, and it is marked by this celestial event, the sighting of a new moon,” Amer said. “Building community this way is so powerful and joyful. There are so many ways we can come together.»