Modern Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) requires special requirements in routing protocols because of nature of distribution and dynamic topology. The most important need for WSNs is energy efficient routing protocol that consumes optimal energy. It provides extension to the network’s life period. Nowadays a number of energy efficient routing protocols are proposed by various researchers in WSNs. However, security and energy efficiency in data collection and transmission in WSNs should be simultaneously considered for security challenges and to overcome limitation of WSNs. In this paper, we propose a new and effective routing protocol named, “Intelligent Energy Aware Secured Algorithm for Routing (IEASAR)” which is secure by using a Trust based approach and is Energy efficient at the same time. For this purpose, a new energy efficient protocol using Fuzzy C-means has been proposed in this paper. Moreover, a modified minimum spanning tree approach is applied here to identify the minimum distance path between the sender node and the destination node and hence an optimal and secured routing path is selected. Extensive simulations have been conducted in this work to verify the validity of our claims. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York.