The Prophet’s Mercy with Animals Any other kind of mercy left Muhammad did not teach to people in his school, Father Stephano asked? If you insist to go on, yes, there is yet one further kind of mercy the west frequently brags about these days, perhaps to cover its cruelty in other aspects of human mercy. The Prophet (Peace and Blessings of God be upon him) taught this kind in his school some one thousand four hundred years ago. Which is? It is not related to mercy to human beings, I said. To what then, he asked? Mercy to animals. Animals, he said, taken aback! We thought that animal rights are the exclusive property of modern western civilization. You cannot be serious! I could be, were it not for a simple fact. The west today might well refrain from hurting a cat or killing a dog. Yet it would not hesitate to wipe out entire nations and peoples if it as much as caught the slightest whiff of oil in the lower depths of the earth, as it is doing in Iraq now, or the slightest glimmer of some precious metals within the borders of a particular state, as it did in Africa! But how would you explain the extra care and attention the west gives today to animal rights, I added, when you juxtapose it to denying “the other” his inalienable human rights? The only explanation for the obvious contradiction, he said after a moment’s reflection, is that the west, like other inhabitants of this world, has good and bad elements. The bad element it seems has overpowered and totally disarmed the good in the west these days. The animal rights activists can well turn into human rights activists, reinforcing the good element with enough rigour and power as to say to all bad and evil elements: No! Enough is enough! One thousand four hundred years prior to the establishment of animal rights groups in the west, the Prophet (pbuh) was teaching students in his school how to show mercy to animals, especially the ones that are useful to man, whether for riding, working or eating. He said: “Be pious and obey God’s commands even in dealing with these uncomprehending beasts. Ride them the right way and eat them the right way.”1 Put them to good use and treat them well, that is. The “good way” here cannot be but with kindness and mercy. And how are these animals to be treated in the right way, he asked? The Prophet taught people to use the riding or working animals the way they were originally created. Some people used to sit or rest on the backs of their riding animals when the animals are crouching or standing. Others used animals to address the crowds, standing on their backs to be seen and heard by others. In either case the animal is not used for the purpose it was created for by nature, practically turning the animal into a chair in the former and a pulpit in the latter. Although they remain complaint, the Prophet (pbuh) could feel that the animals are hurt or are uncomfortable with the unnatural positions and uses they are put to. That is why he said: “Ride these animals without hurting them; keep them safe and indulge them; do not use them as seats.”2 He also said: “Beware of using the backs of your riding animals as pulpits. Almighty God had created them to take you to countries you could not have reached without them except with great difficulty. He made the land for you to utilize, so find in it what you need.”3 How beautiful are those humane and merciful touches, Father Stephano said! Don’t you agree with me that it is perfect mercy with those wonderful creatures that we look after them and give them food and water and refrain from overworking them? Sure, I said, and the Prophet did not overlook this in his teachings. It is reported that “one day the Prophet entered an orchard that belongs to one of the Ansar men and found a camel there. When the camel saw the Prophet, it started to whine and nuzzle up to him, its eyes watering as if in complaint. The Prophet stroked the camel and rubbed its ears and it calmed down. Who owns this camel, the Prophet asked? To whom does this camel belong? It is mine, Prophet of God, an Ansari youth said. Wouldn’t you show some piety to God in treating this animal He made you in possession of? The camel complained to me that you starve and overwork it.”4 So, riding and working animals have been treated kindly and mercifully in the school of Muhammad, Father Stephano said. What about animals used for food? The most important aspect of mercy shown to this kind of animals, having looked after feeding them and giving them enough water and rest, is to be merciful when we slaughter them. And how did Muhammad teach mercy to animals when slaughtered, he asked? It is reported that “the Prophet (pbuh) came across a man putting his foot on the side of a goat’s face while he sharpened his knife and the goat looking at him. Couldn’t you have done this beforehnd (i.e. sharpened the knife in advance and before you lay the animal for slaughter), the Prophet said? Do you want to kill it (make it feel the pain of death) twice?!”5 “God ordained benevolence in everything,”the Prophet (pbuh) said. “So if you kill an animal kill it well, and if you slaughter it slaughter it well. Let each of you sharpen his knife and let the slaughtered animal die quickly and comfortably.”6 Having taught people how to slaughter animals mercifully, he promised them rewards for the application of this kind of mercy killing. A man came to the Prophet once and said: “I slaughter my goat mercifully.” “And God will be merciful with you if you show mercy to the goat.”7 He stressed the significance of this kind of mercy and the reward for it. He said: “He who shows mercy even in the slaughtering of a small bird, God will be merciful with him on the Day of Judgment.”8 What a difference, he said, between this merciful killing Muhammad taught to people in his school and what some westerners do when they club seals to extinction with no mercy or compassion! Do you know the Sharia’ law taught in the school of Muhammad for this kind of butchering animals? What? They wouldn’t be fit for human consumption and Muslims are forbidden to eat them. As stated in the Quranic verse: “Forbidden to you (the eating of) carrion, blood, pork, and whatever is offered in sacrifice to any other than God. Also forbidden are the animals killed by strangling, clubbing, headlong falling, head-butting and those devoured by wild beasts. Only what is slaughtered in the appropriate way (is allowed for you to eat).” (Quran, 5:3) The clubbed here is the animal beaten to death. If only animal rights groups in the west today would draw people’s attention to all these unmerciful acts of killing and slaughtering of animals. Not only killing, surely, but every other act that smacks of cruelty and lack of mercy to these animals is forbidden in the school of Muhammad (pbuh). It is reported that the Prophet came across a donkey branded in the face and he said: “God curse the man who branded it (there).”9 The Prophet noticed that some people used animals as live targets to practice their archery- or any other kind, like javelin throwing- and he strictly banned it because of the cruelty and lack of mercy entailed to the animals. It is reported by Abdullah bin Omar that “The Prophet (pbuh) cursed whoever takes a living soul as a target.”10 Saeed bin Jaber said: “Omar’s son passed by a group of people who set a hen as a practicing target. Who did that, he asked?! The Prophet of God had cursed the one who did it.”11 If the animals were not created for riding, working or eating, Father Stephano asked, would they be entitled to Muhammad’s mercy? Yes, I said. A companion of the Prophet reported that “We were travelling with the Prophet (pbuh) and he went away for a call of nature. We saw a redstart with its two chicks and we took them away from here. The bird kept hovering above us and flapping its wings. When the Prophet returned, he asked: ‘Who bereaved this mother and deprived her of her child? Give it back to her.’ … (Later) He saw an ant colony we had set fire to and he said: ‘Who burnt this?’ We did, we said. ‘No one should torture with fire except the Lord of the fire (God),’ he said.”12 In showing mercy to animals, the Prophet (pbuh) did not only limit himself to observable reality but used animals as subjects of his proverbial wisdom that impressed on peoples’ minds for a long time. He told his companions once, warning against cruelty to animals: “A woman was tormented in Hell for a cat she had kept locked till it died. She neither fed it, gave it water or set the cat free to feed itself of the scrap and vermin of the earth.”13 Another sample of his proverbial wisdom promoting mercy and kindness to animals is reported by Asma’ bint Abi Bakre. “God’s Messenger (pbuh) said: While a man was walking he felt thirsty and went down a well and drank water from it. Coming out, he saw a dog panting and eating mud with its desperate thirst. The man said: This dog is as thirsty as I was. So he went down the well, filled his shoe with water, held it with his teeth then climbed up and gave the water to the dog. God thanked him and absolved his sins. The people asked: Is there a reward for us in serving animals, Prophet of God? Yes, he replied, there is a reward for serving every living creature.”14 The Prophet’s proverbial wisdom was by mo means detached from his practice in daily life. His wife ‘A’isha reported that “the Prophet used to tilt the jug of water for the cat to drink then performed his ablutions for prayer with what is left of the water.”15 So, Father Stephano said after a moment’s reflection, the British theological scholar Karen Armstrong was right in what she said in her Muhammad. What did she say? She summed up what she knew about Muhammad’s mercy to animals, having exposed the ignorance of the West with his merciful character. She said: “Down the centuries we have envisioned Muhammad as a sullen and surly man, a tough warrior and a cool, calculating politician. But he was an incredibly compassionate and sensitive soul. He loved animals, for instance. When he found a cat sleeping on his gown he let her sleep on and hated to disturb her (it is even reported that he cut his only gown round the bit where the cat was sleeping in order not to wake or disturb it). It is often said that one criterion of social progress lies in a society’s attitude to animals. All religions prompt people to love and respect the natural world, and Muhammad tried to teach Muslims to do just that… He prohibited the branding of animals in a way that hurt them, and he banned all animal fights.”16 Father Stephano reflected for a while and said: After all you’ve told me, I’m wondering whether there is a single creature excluded from the mercy of Muhammad and the students of Muhammad’s school?! Source: Muhammad Hussam Al-Khateeb, Was Muhammad Merciful? —————————— Footnotes: (1) Al-Albani, Al-Silsilah Al-Sahihah, Hadeeth no. 23. (2) Ibid., Hadeeth no, 21. (3) Ibid., Hadeeth no. 22. (4) Al-Albani, Sahih Al-Targheeb wa Al-Tarheeb, Hadeeth no. 2269; Sahih wa Dha’if Sunan Abi Dawood, no. 2549; Riyadh Al-Saliheen, Hadeeth no. 967; and Al-Silsilah Al-Sahiha, Hadeeth no 20. (5) Al-Albani, Al-Silsilah Al-Sahihah, Hadeeth no. 24. (6) Sahih Muslim, Hadeeth no. 3615. (7) Al-Albani, Al-Silsilah Al-Sahihah, Hadeeth no. 26. (8) Ibid., Hadeeth no. 27. (9) Al-Albani, Sahih Al-Targheeb wa Al-Tarheeb, Hadeeth no. 2293. (10) Al-Albani, Sahih wa Dha’if Sunan Al-Nisa’i, Hadeeths no. 4441-4443. (11) Al-Albani, Ghayat Al-Maram, electronic copy, Hadeeth no. 382. (12) See Al-Albani, Al-Silsilah Al-Sahihah, Hadeeths no. 25 & 487. (13) Ibid., Hadeeth no. 25. (14) Ibid., Hadeeth no. 29. See the same Hadeeth in Sahih Al-Bukhari, no. 5550 and Sahih Muslim, no 4162. (15) Reported by Al-Dar’kutni. Al-Albani cited this Hadeeth in Irwa’ Al-Ghaleel on the authority of Abi ‘Qutadah: “A cat came by and he tilted the jug for it to drink. He said a cat is not impure. It is one of those creatures that go round (visiting) your homes.” Hadeeth no. 173. (16) K. Armstrong, Muhammad, cit., p. 344.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 08:40:00 +0000
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