Ambassador Fahad Al Attiyah discusses sustainability and heritage at GU-Q

Ambassador Fahad Al Attiyah explored how Islamic principles and heritage can inform sustainable practices during a lecture at GU-Q.Ambassador Fahad Al Attiyah discussed the relationship between Islamic principles, sustainability and heritage during a lecture at Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), drawing on his work at Heenat Salma and the Caravane Earth Foundation.Titled “From Vision to Practice: Heenat Salma, Sustainability and Heritage,” the lecture examined how knowledge and practices rooted in Islamic civilisation could inform contemporary approaches to agriculture, architecture, craftsmanship and natural resource management.Al Attiyah argued that sustainability begins with how societies understand their responsibilities towards the natural world.“The universe is not an accidental collection of resources awaiting human exploitation,” he said. “It is a created order possessing meaning, purpose and proportion.”Drawing on the Islamic concepts of tawhid, or the oneness of God, and khilafah, which describes humanity’s role as custodian of the earth, Al Attiyah said environmental responsibility extends beyond technology and policy to how people cultivate land, construct buildings, produce goods and organise their economies.He questioned approaches to development that treat efficiency, speed and growth as measures of progress in themselves.“Science can tell us how to extract groundwater,” he said, “but it cannot independently determine whether we have the moral right to exhaust an aquifer that future generations will need.”Al Attiyah also discussed the place of heritage in contemporary life, noting that traditional buildings, crafts and agricultural practices were not originally created as heritage but were part of everyday life, reflecting local materials, environmental conditions and generations of accumulated knowledge.“The challenge is, therefore, not simply to preserve heritage,” he said. “It is to restore the conditions under which heritage becomes contemporary practice.”At Heenat Salma, a 50-acre farm, Al Attiyah is exploring how that knowledge can be applied today through organic agriculture, traditional architecture and urbanism, natural handmade textiles, and creative and intellectual work.Qatar provides a relevant setting for this work, he said, given the country’s limited freshwater and productive soil alongside its significant energy resources. He argued that long-term resilience requires developing capabilities that reflect those conditions.“Sustainability cannot simply mean making an unsustainable way of life marginally more efficient,” Al Attiyah said. “It must mean recovering an understanding of limits, sufficiency, responsibility and purpose.”Acting Dean Clyde Wilcox opened the event, which was moderated by Patrick Laude, professor of theology at GU-Q.