My Guidance
That anything that is not natural for an animal is cruelty to an animal. That those who eat meat, do so with a clear conscience. All animals are sentient. That is they are aware and they feel emotion just as humans do. They are knowing, feeling, conscious, aware and cognisant. They just have no voice and no choice. When one subjects an animal to unnecessary pain and suffering, and thus cuts short its natural life, we figuratively commit a suicide on behalf of that animal, and a spiritual part of one’s own self dies with the animal. Dogs, cats and various other animals that have become part of human society as pets, were originally untamed, brutish animals. It was the love and care that won their confidence in man, and it is only man’s ill treatment that brings back the beast in them. God has not given us unbridled liberty over animals, to experiment on and treat cruelly. Any creature’s life is sacrosanct. Man’s superior position gives him authority over animals, and he enjoys the right to use them, but we are supposed to be vicegerents on earth. The position of pre-eminence is not an unconditional one. The Qu’ran Majeed, whilst declaring man’s vicigerency, makes it clear in the following verses that the appointment is not unconditional: “He who disavows, the burden of disavowal will be on him”, 35.39.
Human beings who misuse their freedom of choice and transgress, they lose their status as human beings in the spiritual sense and are reduced to the status of animals. Their moral status is degraded. “The vilest of all creatures in the site of God are those deaf and dumb ones who do not use their rationality”, 8:21,22. We all need a tender conscience. All creatures glorify God. We do not have licentious freedom to treat animals in any old way we see fit, otherwise mankind leaves behind a trail of wanton destruction for posterity. Everything is produced in pairs. Cruelty to animals crosses the species barrier into cruelty to human beings. The honey bees buzzing dance is not just an outburst of merriment. It is meant to convey to other bees, the location of the nectar, the exact details of directions, distances and the quality and quantity of the find. We do not have licentious freedom to exploit defenceless creatures for sadistic pleasure or for gain. Animals have a sufficient degree of psychic endowment to understand and follow Ullah’s messages. A facility which is higher than instinct and intuition! Calculated violence towards an animal is never acceptable and will have to be accounted for on the Day of Judgement.
Commercial vested interests might tempt doctors, scientists and institutions to abuse their professional privilege. “Do not set up a living creature as a target”. In a “civilised” world, why are we tolerating such cruelty to animals? For many animals grass is a whole new experience. The basic moral question is, how right is it to deny creatures of God, their natural instincts so that we may eat the end product? A computer can give you an up to the minute figure of profits and losses at the touch of a button, while God’s reckoning is a long way off in the hereafter. Do not eat sacrilegious meat. It is only the double standards in our moral and ethical values that create the disparities in our so-called humane societies. The same moral, ethical and legal codes should apply to the treatment of animals as are being applied to humans. All life has a right of protection and preservation.
We have to learn to treat all life on earth homogenously without prejudice and selective standards. Prevention of physical cruelty is not enough. Mental cruelty is equally important. The real and ideal approach to this problem would be, if we could set forth for ourselves the criterion that any kind of medical or scientific research that is unlawful on humans is unlawful on animals. Human beings are born with the ability to know good and bad and right from wrong. Animals only know what is good and what is bad for them. Animals are also victims of conflict and war started and sustained by human beings. Animals have no choice in this conflict. Animals cannot wait for the conflicts of humans to cease. That if an animal is subjected to cruelty in breeding, transportation, slaughter or general welfare, then the meat from them is considered impure and unlawful to eat (Haram).
Dogs awaiting slaughter in China