Why Islamists Go Green

Why Islamists Go Green. Politics, Religion and the Environment by Emmanuel Karagiannis. Edinburgh University Press, 2023.

Why Islamists Go Green is the first study of its kind to comprehensively examine the Islamist movements – the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Hizbullah, Hamas, and jihadist-Salafi groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS – and their relationship to the environment. Karagianni’s material consists of extensive literature, as well as interviews with representatives of each movement. In addition, Karagiannis has analyzed the websites and party programs of the parties and groups. Disciplinarily, the book is a combination of political science and Islamic studies.

The book consists of an introduction, seven chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter provides a detailed, though sometimes less subjective, presentation of Islam and the environment through the themes of land and water, trees, animals and pollution and energy. The same reduced theme is repeated, after a presentation of each movement, in the following five chapters on the Islamist movements.

Karagiannis categorizes Islamist environmental movements into three forms: local, global and glocal. The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and ISIS are examples of local movements that focus on concrete projects to improve the living conditions of the local population, such as water supply. Hizb ut-Tahrir and al-Qaeda represent a global agenda focused on climate change and animal poaching that can appeal to audiences in various countries. Hizbullah has taken a stand on the importance of climate change, but tends to focus on local or national projects. Karagiannis therefore categorizes the movement as glocal. The common denominator of all the movements is that they focus on the environmental issues that are relevant and appealing to their supporters.

Laura Wickström