Identifying and Validating the Concepts of Environmental Ethics from the Qur’an Perspective: A Case Study of the Villagers in Naghadeh County

Despite the growing interest in investigating the role of religious beliefs in environmental protection, there is not enough research into the analysis of divine messages. Therefore, the present study tries to fill this gap by identifying and validating the concepts of environmental ethics from the Qur'anic perspective. In this research, a combined approach (sequential exploratory design) was used. In the qualitative part, to identify the concepts of environmental ethics from the Qur'anic perspective, content analysis was used based on the interpretation approach. In this part, the research implementation process consisted of interviews with seven experts in theology and Islamic studies who were selected by snowball sampling. Then, in the quantitative part, based on the concepts of the qualitative part, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among the study population. The study population consisted of villagers in Naghadeh County (N = 36760), and 379 of them were selected using a stratified random sampling method. A panel of experts determined the content validity of the research instrument. To determine validity, the content validity ratio and content validity index were used, both of which were acceptable (over 0.7). Also, the reliability of the research instrument was determined using Cronbach's alpha (0.83). Exploratory factor analysis was used in the quantitative part to summarize the concepts. According to the results, the concepts of Qur'anic ethics of the environment were classified under the six general concepts of "trusteeship," "thanksgiving," "land reclamation," "justice," "perfectionism," and "respect." Second-order confirmatory factor analysis was also used to validate each of the concepts. In the end, suggestions were made to strengthen the values and principles of Islamic ethics toward environmental protection.