Our
Environment

You know, wherever it is that people end up living,

from the time that they crawl they need to find their way around.

So they learn what is up and down,

and backwards and forwards

and left and right.

And most people have no problem with up and down,

but for some reason lots of people have trouble keeping track of their left and right.

People are strange sometimes.

Now, a useful way for them to think of where they are going is to imagine they are seeing it from above,

like a bird looking down,

or a drone sending down pictures from up high.

And they call those pictures in their heads, looking down on their surroundings, maps.

And they can use them to work out where they are and which way to go to get to where they want to be.

And sometimes using maps you can find a short cut.

Or they can use maps to show where players on a football field need to stay and need to go,

or where they fit into a country or the world,

or how close they are to the sea or hills and mountains.

And they don't only use them for places on the earth.

They can use them to map the stars.

Of course when they look up they can't always see the stars because the sky can be full of clouds.

There's a whole lot of stuff that goes on between them and the stars.

Because the winds blow the clouds around, and sometimes the clouds let the water in them fall as rain,

and sometimes if it's cold, the water falls as hail or snow.

And the water that falls on the hills runs down and comes together as streams and rivers.

And all the stuff going on in the air above their heads they call weather.

And it changes through the year from hot in summer to needing woollen jumpers and hats and scarves, and wellington boots in the winter.

And after the weather has blown over them it moves on to somewhere else,

from one part of Scotland to another,

and from Scotland to other countries close by.

In any one place, the sky above them and the weather in it are for everybody,

but people in other places in the world have very different weather.

Some places hardly ever get rain, and can have winters much hotter than Scottish summers,

and with no rain there can be no plants, so some places turn into deserts.

And depending on the kind of weather they have in different places, different kinds of plants will grow.

Which will mean that different places will grow different kinds of foods.

In Scotland they can grow grains like oats, and barley, or vegetables like potatoes and cabbages,

and they use the grass that grows to graze sheep and cattle, and they take salmon from their rivers.

But if they want to eat oranges or bananas, then they have to get them from hotter countries far away.

And they use the landscape around them to feed themselves, but they also use it to play in.

They use the mountains for skiing and climbing, and the lochs for water sports, and grass for golfing.

And because they use the environment around them in so many different ways, they need to look after it

so that the people that come after them can use it in the same way.

So whether they are in the town or in the country, muslims try not to leave rubbish around to spoil it for others.

Caring for the environment is part of the muslim way of life.