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The green Qur?an
He initiated group named Urdu Scientific Society to create among the people, specially of the minority community, a temperament of viewing life and the world from a pragmatic point. Today, a book authored by him has inspired UNESCO to launch a multi-million-dollar project?Qur?an Botanical Gardens in Doha and other Gulf nations.
He initiated group named Urdu Scientific Society to create among the people, specially of the minority community, a temperament of viewing life and the world from a pragmatic point. Today, a book authored by him has inspired UNESCO to launch a multi-million-dollar project—Qur’an Botanical Gardens in Doha and other Gulf nations.
Retired deputy director of the National Botanical Research Institute, Dr MIH Farooqi, has authored several books that have been translated into an even higher number of languages. His bestseller ‘Plants of the Qur’an, in which he highlighted plants that find mention in the holy book and their medicinal properties, became the basis for a proposal approved by the UNESCO headquarters at Paris.
“I will shortly be leaving for Paris to hold discussion for the execution of the project,” says Dr Farooqi. “The United Nations body wishes to revive the Qur’anic plants in the tradition of the Prophet of Islam and uphold their time-tested value,” he adds.
The book is a result of painstaking research carried out by the botanical scientist, including exhaustive study of books and manuscripts in libraries of France and Egypt. “Amazing as it is, the most accurate record of Hadith (sayings and practices of the Prophet of Islam) may be found in France,” says Dr Farooqi, lamenting how weak is the tradition of keeping records in our parts of the world.
The Qur’an Botanical Garden, said a UNESCO Press release, would help achieve important objectives in the field of scientific research, education and recreation and would also be a meaningful opportunity in the field of scientific research in order to study the sophisticated link between biodiversity and ecosystems.
On successful execution, the gardens have been proposed to come up in Doha, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
The Qur’an mentions a number of plants, including date palms, figs, grapes, olives and pomegranates. The proposed gardens will have features based on over 150 verses in the holy book that mention the Jannat-al-Firdaus (Gardens of Paradise) which have inspired over centuries a good number of Islamic gardens that embody a physical recall of heaven on earth and have inspired some of the most beautiful landscapes all over the world, involving the basic use of water, shade and plants.