The St. Lawrence River is 1,900 miles long. Its wide mouth empties its flow into the Atlantic Ocean where buoyant whales and majestic icebergs drift throughout the summer months. The river begins more modestly where the northern and southern shores of Lake Ontario curve in towards each other, channeling the cold waters of the Great Lakes into the riverbed. We were born on the Canadian side of the river, but the island on which we lived was closer to New York State. This area is now called the “Thousand Islands,” but before there was a Canada, and before there was an America, the indigenous people called it “The Garden of the Great Spirit.” My brothers and sisters and I grew up in jannah.

Well, it really was beautiful. But we were, after all, children of Adam. And as the angels feared, we would make a mess of many things. To begin with, there was the question of those indigenous people. As children, we spent long July afternoons on the edge of the forest digging for their arrowheads, flints and pottery shards. But where had the people gone? No one thought much to talk about our own Cain and Abel story.

Then there was the question of what we did to the river itself. Flowing over deep layers of limestone, refreshed with generous rain and snow every year, the river seemed impervious to anything we might throw its way. And we did throw many things its way. In fact, lacking refuse collection services on the island, it seemed easiest to let the current “take it away.” I don’t know where all our tin cans and plastic wrappers ended up, but we deliberately sunk the old car nearby in the bay to create a good fishing hole. Little wonder that our children now catch only a few small perch and a rare undersized bass in a day.

As hard as it is to believe, the truth is that we did not realize that we were damaging the river, killing plant and animal life, and poisoning others and ourselves. But as years passed, and our exposure to information about the environment increased, we became appalled at our previous behavior. We had, after all, been taught that it is wrong to damage property and harm others. We had internalized the principles, we simply were not aware of the negative consequences of our actions.

And so, as opportunities arose, some of us planted trees, others cleaned up polluted sites, gave money to save the rain forest and took up organic gardening. By this time, we had scattered across the country, and even the world, and we took these actions in the midst of our new communities. But the river—our river—always called us back. We wanted to be there and make it better, but that would mean living and working together for at least part of the year. This would not be easy.

After all, the years had witnessed other changes in us. By the time we had become aware of our need to relate to the river in a new way, we had taken different spiritual paths. Certainly the Muslim in the family found ample proof in Islam that she had an obligation to conserve and respect the environment. The Christians, Jews and secular humanists found their own proofs for similar, if not identical obligations. But there were many other things we did not agree about. In fact, at times there were some serious disagreements and tension.

This is my story. It is also the human story. Muslims believe that the children of Adam do not inherit sin from their ancestors. But we do inherit the good that our ancestors have bequeathed to us, and we are burdened with repairing what they have damaged. In our time, in every place that Muslims live, whether the Muslims are the majority or the minority, there are serious societal problems that need to be addressed. The environment needs to be restored, indigenous and other minority groups need to be relieved of the burden of years of systematic injustice, children and the poor need daily supp