The Blessing We Mistook for Scenery

Before the city has fully woken, a sparrow settles on an electric wire and begins to sing. Most of us never hear it. We are already bent over the small glow of a phone, opening a world that is not this one. The sparrow finishes, shakes out its wings and is gone. It has not complained; we have not given thanks.
From our first breath to our last, we live inside nature. It is among the greatest blessings Allah Almighty has bestowed upon us, and we have given it a single, shrinking title: scenery. Scenery hangs beyond a window, to be admired and forgotten. Nature is a trust, and the first duty of one who holds a trust is gratitude.
Its beauty is no private taste. Whatever our tongue, colour or race, we fall silent when light turns gold on water. The bulbul in the branches, the deep blue of the sea, the rivers, lakes and streams threading the plains, the cold wind, the tenderness of birds: each is a signature in the margin of creation, lifting the eye from the creature to the Creator. It refreshes the eyes, but it does more: it brings peace to the heart. That longing for beauty was set in us by the same hand that adorned the world, and it is the oldest evidence that we were made to be at home here.
Nature also heals. In a restless age, when every money-seeking mind is busy, and stress, anxiety and depression have settled into the soul, a walk through a lush forest or an hour at the quiet edge of a lake gives what no hurry can. It lowers the pulse and unclenches the mind, and the body, too, gains from clean air and open sky. The cure waits at the door, and we have no time to answer it.
Each season arrives with its own colour, charm and transformation, and poets and admirers have always come to lay their verses at its feet.
Spring, the season of renewal, is loved by all. It wakes the poet’s dormant imagination and kindles his inner artistry, and from that flame come lines that captivate every lover. Flowers open in the gardens, bringing life and beauty, and the cool, fragrant air delights the heart. Spring whispers that what withered was only waiting.
Summer, the season of vitality, follows with long, warm days and a sun that shines from dawn to dusk. The harvest is ready, and the farmer, with all his strength, bends to cut the crop. Even this heat hides its own charm, as greenery spreads across fields and forests.
Autumn, the season of conversion, paints the world in gold. Leaves change colour and fall with grace, and the sound of their falling in forests and gardens is a melody. Birds gather grain in great numbers for the winter, knowing without any book that every departure is a preparation.
Winter, the season of stagnation, wraps the world in frost and fog, and in that hush lie beauty, peace and serenity. Birds sit quietly in their nests, and people stay home with those they love. Then winter brings, once again, the glad news of spring. Four seasons, one sentence: no ending is final.
Life itself is incomplete without nature. The air we breathe comes from plants. The water we drink is pure because the earth keeps it so. The food that sustains us grows from the soil, and the sun warms us when we are close to freezing. Every provision arrives without a bill, and what costs nothing, we learn to waste.
That is the bitterest chapter of our age. The threats to nature multiply, and we destroy it ruthlessly. Trees are cut down and thrown away in the name of modernity, by the same hands that will not plant one at home. Factories and industries pour polluted, dirty water into rivers that once taught poets their metaphors. Intoxicated by progress, we are sawing through the branch on which we sit.
To protect nature is therefore the duty of every individual, not of governments alone. We must plant as many trees as we can and guard air and water from pollution, deforestation and toxic waste, so that future generations may enjoy this gift. No forest was a forest on its first day. It began as a seed in a hand that did not ask who would eat the fruit. So let one sapling go into the courtyard, one by the road we walk each day, one in the neighbourhood that has forgotten what green looks like. Such acts seem small, but nations are made and unmade by small things.
Nature is essential for our survival, but it also teaches us how to live and how to celebrate every joy that life holds. Allah, in His power, adorned the world so that human beings might find peace in mind and soul. Gratitude for such a gift is not a sentence spoken but a gift kept whole.
Imagine, years from now, a child climbing into your lap and asking, “Is it true there were once trees here? That birds sang? That the river ran blue?” Only two answers will be possible: a silence heavy with shame, or a quiet smile and a finger pointing toward the courtyard. “Look. I planted that for you.”
Tomorrow the sparrow will return, carrying the same old message. Whoever hears it today will save its nest tomorrow, and whoever saves the nest has, in truth, saved their own home.