Animal Welfare in Islam. Al-Hafiz Basheer Ahmad Masri

c. Faculty of Speech

d. The Utility-Value

e. The Metaphysics of the Animal Mind

f. Rights in the Resources of Nature

The Servitude of Animals

The Islamic Juristic Rules

Experiments on Animals

Human Needs and Interests (Al-Maṣāliḥ)

Vivisection

       Factory-Farming

       General Reforms of Islam

       The Moral Appeal of Islam

       Beasts of Burden

       Mental Cruelty

       Slaughter of Food Animals

       Conclusion

       References and Notes

       Chapter Two: Vegetarianism v/s Meatarianism

       Preamble

       The Dialectics of Diet and Health

       The Importance of Vitamins

       The Anatomy of Man

       The Economics of Food

       Confucianism

       Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism

       Christianity

       Judaism and Islam

       References and Notes

       Chapter Three: Animal Sacrifice

       Preamble

       The Ancient Orient

       Confucianism

       Hinduism

       Jainism

       Buddhism

       Christianity

       Judaism

       The Biblical Concept of God

       Concepts of God

       Atonement

       The Judaic Theology of Sacrifice

       The Cultus of Sacrifice

       Biblical Condemnation of Sacrifice

       The Rabbinship (Priesthood)

       The Meaning of Sacrifice

       War – Living Graves

       Islam

       The Prelude to Islamic Sacrifice

       The Islamic Theology of Sacrifice

       Sacrifice as Charity and Alternative Offerings

       Sacrifice by Proxy

       The Three Kinds of Sacrifices

       Appendix A

       References and Notes

       Chapter Four: Ḥalāl Meat – the Bone of Contention

       Preamble

       Lawful and Unlawful Meat

       The Qur’ānic Dietary Ordinances

       Food of the “People of The Book”

       The Paradoxical Enigma of Pork

       Is Jewish Food Ḥalāl?

       Blood

       The Invocation of God’s Name (Tasmiyah and Takbīr)

       The Relative Significance of Bleeding and the Invocation of God’s Name

       References and Notes

       Index

PREFACE

      QUITE A FEW of my friends have been surprised to learn that I have chosen ‘Animals’ as a subject to write on from the Islamic point of view. They feel that I should be more concerned with other multifarious problems which Muslims are facing these days and for which they need help and guidance in solving. The way I look at it, however, is that life on this earth is so inextricably intertwined as an homogeneous unit that it cannot be disentangled for the amelioration of one species at the expense of another.

      All human problems – physical, mental or spiritual – are of our own creation and our wounds self-inflicted. By no stretch of imagination can we blame animals for any of our troubles and make them suffer for it.

      There is no paucity of Muslim scholars and theologians who are far more qualified than me to expound theologically all sorts of such problems. Notwithstanding this, I feel that my practical experience of a lifetime in the field of animal welfare, combined with some theological knowledge, lays a moral responsibility on me to express my views candidly on the current spate of cruelties to animals. The learned theologians generally remain blissfully uninformed on this subject, which is generally beyond the pale of their normal responsibilities. Similarly, the general Muslim public is not fully aware of the scale on which pecuniary, selfish and short-sighted human interests have started exploiting the animal kingdom and are playing havoc with the ecological balance.

      The most alarming and distressing predicament of this deplorable state of affairs is that our Islamic countries too have started treading in the footsteps of the West in the name of commerce and trade. No doubt we have a lot to learn from Western technology and science, but surely animal welfare and environmental conservation is not one of these subjects.

      The Islamic instruction and guidance on animal rights and man’s obligations concerning them are so comprehensive that we need not go elsewhere for any guidance. As believers in the consummate and conclusive revelation of God, we are expected to learn from the misconceptions of the past and cast behind us the parochial approach to religion. Fourteen centuries is a long enough period to grasp mentally the fact that the way (Dīn) to spiritual development does not lie in ritualistic observance and the hair-splitting of the Law (Sharīʿah). Surely it is a long enough period to liberate ourselves from the pre-Islamic traits of our respective cultures.

      Not to be cruel or even to be condescendingly kind to the so-called inferior animals is a negative proposition. Islam wants us to think and act in the positive terms of accepting all species as communities like us in their own right and not to sit in judgement on them according to our human norms and values.

      I hope and pray that my Muslim brethren will fully appreciate the points I have touched upon here, after reading this book.

      Although