Rights and Duties Pertaining to Kept Animals
1RcDQG8
1RcDQG8
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<strong>Rights</strong> <strong>and</strong> duties pertaining <strong>to</strong> kept animals<br />
While these hadiths permit the killing of these specific animals<br />
as vermin, the second hadith indicates that it is not permissible <strong>to</strong><br />
make dogs extinct due <strong>to</strong> their being a community. The Qur’an<br />
states that all flying <strong>and</strong> creeping creatures are also communities:<br />
“And there is no creature on [or within] the earth or bird that flies<br />
with its wings except [that they are] communities like you. We have<br />
not neglected in the Register (al-Kitāb) a thing. Then un<strong>to</strong> their<br />
Lord they will be gathered” (Q6:38). If the Prophet (may Allah<br />
bless him <strong>and</strong> give him peace) prevented the extermination of dogs<br />
due <strong>to</strong> their being a community, it follows that we ought <strong>to</strong> similarly<br />
prevent the extermination of other animals since they, <strong>to</strong>o, are<br />
also communities.<br />
Several hadiths indicate that in cases where it is permissible <strong>to</strong><br />
take an animal’s life (such as when slaughtering it <strong>to</strong> make use of its<br />
meat), care must be taken <strong>to</strong> avoid unnecessary pain. In one hadith,<br />
Shaddād ibn Aws (may Allah be pleased with him) said:<br />
Two things I remember the Messenger of Allah (may<br />
Allah bless him <strong>and</strong> give him peace) having said: “Verily<br />
Allah has enjoined goodness <strong>to</strong> everything. So when<br />
you kill, kill in a good way, <strong>and</strong> when you slaughter,<br />
slaughter in a good way. So every one of you should<br />
sharpen his knife, <strong>and</strong> let the slaughtered animal die<br />
comfortably.” 18<br />
Another hadith forbids cutting off a piece of an animal while it<br />
is still alive, as pre-Islamic Arabs sometimes did. Abū Wāqid (may<br />
Allah be pleased with him) said:<br />
The Prophet (may Allah bless him <strong>and</strong> give him<br />
peace) came <strong>to</strong> Medina where they would cut off the<br />
al-Dārimī (Riyadh: Dār al-Mughnī, 1421/2000), 2051; Ibn Mājah, Sunan Ibn<br />
Mājah (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1406/1985), 3205; Muḥammad<br />
ibn ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, Sunan al-Tirmidhī (Cairo: al-Bāb al-Ḥalabī, n.d.),<br />
1486, 1489; Abu ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, al-Mujtabā (Aleppo: Maktab<br />
al-Maṭbūʿāt al-Islāmiyyah, 1406/1986), 4280; Ibn Ḥibbān, Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān<br />
(Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1408/1988), 5656–7.<br />
18. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1548.1955.<br />
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