How does colonialism still shape inequality, climate change, and animal exploitation today?
Key takeaways
The same extractive logic that fueled colonialism now drives corporate globalization, factory farming, and environmental destruction.
Those least responsible for emissions, often formerly colonized nations, face the harshest impacts, deepening historic inequalities.
As stewards (khulafah), Muslims are commanded to resist corruption (fasad) and build systems rooted in justice, mercy, and balance.
Witnessing today’s crises, wars, climate collapse, factory farming, biodiversity loss, and displacement may feel like we are seeing unrelated disasters stacked on top of one another.
However, when looked at closely, a common theme emerges between them all: centuries of exploitation, rooted in colonialism and carried forward into the structures of our global economy.
Colonialism did not just seize land and labor. It introduced an extractive worldview: nature as a resource, humans as labor, and animals as commodities.
That same worldview and legacy continues today, now under the labels of globalization, development, and “progress.” The same logic that fueled the conquest of lands now drives the deforestation of the Amazon, the mass extinction of species, and the poisoning of poor communities in the name of profit.
Colonialism’s legacy of extraction
When European powers colonized Asia, Africa, and the Americas, they reshaped entire ecologies and societies to serve their empires.
Cash crops replaced diverse agriculture. Land that was once stewarded by Indigenous communities was seized for export markets. Animals were domesticated and exploited on an industrial scale to feed growing empires.
This was not just an economic project but an ideological one. Colonialism taught that the Earth is an object, not a trust; that Indigenous peoples are “backward,” not guardians of wisdom and knowledge; that animals are resources, not communities of life. These attitudes laid the foundation for the modern system of exploitation.
Corporate is the new colonial
Multinational corporations have replaced colonial governors in the present era, but the extractive mindset remains the same:
Rainforests are razed for beef and animal feed, displacing Indigenous peoples in countries like Brazil, much like colonial land grabbing centuries ago.
Communities in the Global South are poisoned by mining for materials, such as cobalt, much as they were once enslaved for sugar and cotton.
Factory farming mirrors the plantation model - the commodification of sentient beings, profit at the expense of life.
What is evident from all this is that colonialism never ended. It simply evolved into corporate globalization.
Climate collapse and the “New Empire”
Contemporary climate change is not natural. However, it’s not a neutral phenomenon either. It is the direct outcome of a system built on fossil fuel extraction, overconsumption, and disregard for ecological balance. But it is also deeply unequal:
Countries least responsible for emissions, many formerly colonized nations like Pakistan, face the harshest of consequences: floods, droughts, famine, and displacement.
Wealthy nations continue to pollute while outsourcing environmental harm to poorer regions, in the age-old colonial patterns of exploitation.
In this sense, climate collapse is the “new empire”, i.e., a system where the powerful profit while the vulnerable pay the price.
How should Muslims respond?
Islam offers a radically different worldview than the exploitative one we’ve become accustomed to. It sees the Earth not as an object of conquest but as an amanah (trust) from Allah (SWT). It sees diversity – of people, creatures, and ecosystems – as part of the Almighty’s scheme of creation. As His signs (ayah), not resources to be exploited.
The Qur’an warns: “Do not spread corruption (fasad) in the land after it has been set in order” (7:56).
Colonialism and its modern descendants like the ‘cult of progress’ are forms of fasad, corruption, that tear apart the divine balance (mizan) of creation.
Our role as Muslims is that of khulafah: to be stewards who resist zulm (injustice) in all its forms. Against people, animals, and the Earth as a whole.
To recognize that justice (adl) is indivisible: we cannot fight for human rights while ignoring environmental collapse, nor fight for animals while ignoring colonial violence. They are all part of the same struggle.
Upholding justice (adl)
If exploitation is the thread tying colonialism to climate collapse, then justice and compassion must be the threads that we use to shape a better future.
So what would this mean in practice? Among many things, it would mean:
Supporting Indigenous struggles for land and sovereignty.
Rejecting industries that profit from animal cruelty and environmental destruction.
Reducing consumption and waste, resisting the colonial logic of endless growth.
Building movements that unite human, animal, and environmental justice instead of separating them.
Colonialism fractured the world. And climate collapse threatens to break it further. But by reconnecting justice across humans, animals, and ecosystems, we can begin to heal the damage. And in the process, we can live up to our responsibility as khulafah of the Earth.
