As we all know, they are the lungs of the world where the world breathes fresh air. For the continuation of ecosystem diversity and to keep the air we breathe clean, we need trees from trunk to leaf, from branch to fruit. (Trees not only benefit us materially, but also transmit our cultural codes from the past to us through their roots. Leaning on a tree in your village is leaning on your culture.)

Restoring Hope

In a world that is rapidly becoming a desert due to climate change, unconscious destruction of green areas and erosion, we all have a great duty to ensure that we and our future generations can benefit from this blessing.

Planting a sapling is about looking to the future with hope and doing something, even if it is small, as much as you can.

The importance of planting trees in our religion;

Protecting trees and planting new ones is one of the recommended and rewarding deeds. Moreover, it is not a one-time reward, but an act of charity, that is, a deed whose reward will continue even after death.

Sadaqa-i cariye is to raise good children, to leave scholarly works and to plant trees, and planting trees is the easiest.

Our Prophet (sallallâhu 'alayhi wa sallam) said in one of his hadiths: '' If you have a sapling in your hand, do not hesitate to plant it, even if Doomsday is coming. This hadith indicates that planting trees is the best thing to do even in difficult times.

In another hadith, it is stated: "If a person plants a tree, as long as that tree bears fruit and people benefit from it, its reward is written to the one who planted it. That tree becomes a charity of the planter. It does not matter if the place where the tree is located later on becomes someone else's property. Or the tree may have been planted on someone else's land as charity.

A mulberry tree lives 400 years, a walnut tree 700 years, a chestnut tree 900 years, a plane tree 1500 years. Linden is the most medicinal. In Bursa, there are thousand-year-old plane trees planted by Osman Gazi and Orhan Gazi.

Our ancestors planted trees with us in mind. We have benefited from them, we are benefiting from them. This duty belongs to us for our future generations to benefit.

Not everyone can afford to build a mosque, a fountain or a bridge. But planting a tree does not require material wealth. It requires a tiny seed or a tiny sapling, a little water, a little patience and sunlight, a lot of love and hope...