Lyrics

I see you're an advocate of vegetarianism. Most people don't see the link between that and ecological sustainability.

I'm actually vegan, and I would say the heart of religion and Islam is arguably the greatest proponent of that is compassion. And it says in the Book of Psalms, God's love, mercy, and compassion extends to all his creatures. And we are called to be God-like in terms of these qualities, to emulate these divine qualities. So we should be compassionate towards all creatures. Now, in the past, I recognized that it was very difficult to have a healthy, balanced diet without eating animal products. But today we can do so. And today, being part of the animal industry, livestock food production, is not only being party to an enormous amount of cruelty greater than the cruelty in the past, far greater than the era of our grandparents and great-grandparents because of its mass production and its intensified factory farming methods. But also today, we know that there's a lot of unhealth within that because of the hormones and the antibiotics pumped into various animals and therefore into their products and being at the end of the food chain intensified so much more. And there are environmental issues. The food industry does more pollution to our world than all the forms of transport all put together. A question of environmental destruction for mass production, the methane gas, the water wastage, the land wastage. Therefore, there's also a question of distributive justice. We have enough resources. God has given us enough resources in this world to feed the whole world. Unfortunately, a minority is abusing these resources and wasting it in a terrible manner. If we were to reduce meat consumption, we would waste less, we would have more food for the world, we would pollute the world, yes, but above all, we would behave with more compassion, with more sensitivity. And yes, there's always a danger that people can be compassionate towards animals and not towards human beings, but generally speaking, I think if a person is a compassionate person, compassion towards animals will heighten and intensify their compassion towards all.