The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has recommended the government to make illegal tree felling a criminal offence after declaring that tree cutting is forbidden in Islam.
The CII recommended this during the tree plantation drive held at the CII headquarters on Monday where the CII chairman along with other members planted over 50 trees on the premises.
The council has further asked the government tree plantation drive should be converted into state policy and all government departments, offices, educational institutions and the general public should take part in afforestation.
Talking to a local media outlet, CII Chairman Dr Qibla Ayaz said that the government should impose heavy fine coupled with imprisonment on a person found involved in illegal tree cutting. He referred to a number of ahadith of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in which cutting of trees had been forbidden in strong terms.
He further said that the council intends to promote tree plantation drive in the religious context and encourage religious seminaries to establish Quranic Garden consisting of different plants whose names are mentioned in the Holy Quran.
Dr Ayaz said that this concept has been very popular in the European countries where Biblical gardens are part of the landscape of diverse European areas for ecology promotion. He said that a famous Quranic garden exists at Jamia Usmania in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
