By Mustafa Makumba

In our beautiful land of Malawi, we are seeing things that would make any person stop and ponder deeply. For the past three years now, the rain has been shy and the sun has been very hot, leaving our maize gardens dry and brittle. 

This maize is our life, but today, seeing a bag of it in the market is like looking for gold because the price is just too high for a common person to reach. The staple food has become a luxury for Malawians who have a vast arable land and plenty of fresh water. It was very painful when we used to hear that our brothers and sisters in some districts were forced to eat wild beans like chitedze just to keep their children alive. 

When you talk to the experts, they tell us plainly that we have cut down too many trees and left our soil naked to the wind and the heat. We must realize that the environment is not just something we live in, but it is a trust given to us by the Almighty. 

In the Quran, Allah tells us in Surah Ar-Rum, verse 41, that “corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by what the hands of people have earned, so He may let them taste part of what they have done that perhaps they will return to the right path.”  This verse is like a mirror showing us our own reflection. We have cleared the forests for charcoal and failed to plant back what we took, and now the earth is reacting to how we have treated it. As Malawians, we are known for our spirit of helping one another, but we must also help the land.

Islam teaches us that even if the Day of Judgment was about to start and one of us had a small plant in our hand, we should still plant it. This shows that taking care of nature is a form of worship and a way to protect our future. If we want the blessings of rain and a good harvest again, we must change our ways and start respecting the vegetation that Allah placed here to protect us. 

Let us take this dry spell as a loud reminder to stop the deforestation and start caring for the Malawi we love, so that no child has to go to bed hungry again.