Beyond Stewardship: Toward a Relational Ecological Responsibility through Hadith

Abstract

The accelerating ecological crisis has intensified the need to reconsider how human responsibility toward the more-than-human world is ethically conceived. Environmental stewardship provides an important framework by transforming human power over creation into obligations of care, protection, and restraint. Yet when stewardship is understood predominantly through management, human beings may remain positioned as the principal agents of responsibility, while nonhuman beings appear primarily as objects of protection. This study examines how selected Prophetic traditions construct the moral significance of human–nonhuman relationships and how these configurations can extend ecological responsibility beyond stewardship. Employing qualitative textual research and thematic-relational analysis, the study examines three groups of Prophetic traditions: the hadith of a thirsty dog, the hadith of a confined cat, and the hadith concerning planting and cultivation. The analysis focuses on the relational structures through which human agency becomes morally significant, rather than merely identifying general environmental values. The findings identify three interconnected dimensions of relational ecological responsibility. First, care emerges as responsiveness to nonhuman vulnerability, as illustrated by the human response to the thirsty dog. Second, accountability emerges when human agency produces or intensifies another creature’s vulnerability and harm, as demonstrated by the confinement and deprivation of the cat. Third, benefit emerges when human action creates conditions through which both human and nonhuman beings can receive positive effects, as illustrated by the planting tradition. These dimensions indicate that ecological responsibility involves not only protecting creation or preventing harm, but also responding to vulnerability, answering for the consequences of human agency, and creating conditions through which other forms of life can benefit. The study therefore proposes relational ecological responsibility as a conceptual extension rather than a rejection of stewardship. It shifts the ethical focus from responsibility directed toward nature toward responsibility constituted within relationships with other beings, offering a conceptual bridge between Hadith Studies and contemporary Islamic ecological ethics.