Animal Welfare In Islam

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2007:

 

 

Animal Welfare In Islam

by Al-Hafiz Basheer Ahmad Masri

The Islamic Foundation & Compassion In World Farming, 2007.

(The Islamic Foundation: Markfield Conf. Centre,

Ratby Lane, Markfield, Leiscestershire, LE67

9SY, U.K.; <www.islamic-foundation.org.uk>;

CIWF: 5-A Charles St., Petersfield, Hampshire

GU32 3EH, U.K.; <www.ciwf.org.uk/>.)

164 pages, paperback £9.95, hardback £15.95.

 

 

Animal Welfare In Islam is an updated and

corrected edition of Islamic Concern for Animals,

originally issued in 1987 by the Athene Trust,

the original name of Compassion In World Farming.

Considered the definitive work so far on the

obligations that religious Muslims should observe

toward animals, the first edition included both

English and Arabic texts. The new edition is

only in English.

Key excerpts have been accessible at

<www.islamicconcern.com/-islamicteachings.pdf>,

but the whole text had been out of print and hard

to find for more than a decade.

Similar commentaries are now emerging

from various scholars around the world, but the

contributions of B.A. Masri (1914-1993) are

especially of note. His honorific, " Al-Hafiz, "

signifies that he had memorized the entire Quran.

After a long teaching career, Masri edited the

monthly Islamic Review, 1961-1967, visited and

spoke in more than 40 chiefly Muslim nations,

and was a well-known lecturer and broadcast

commentator on Islamic affairs.

" The Islamic instruction and guidance on animal

rights and man's obligations concerning them are

so comprehensive that he need not go elsewhere

for any guidance, " al Masri prefaced.

" As believers in the consummate and

conclusive revelation of God, " Masri continued,

" 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 to spiritual development (Dîn) does

not lie in ritualistic observance and the

hair-splitting of the Law (Sharâh). 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, " al Masri

asserted. " 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 judgment on them according to our human

norms and values. "

--Merritt Clifton

 

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

[ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent

newspaper providing original investigative

coverage of animal protection worldwide, founded

in 1992. Our readership of 30,000-plus includes

the decision-makers at more than 10,000 animal

protection organizations. We have no alignment

or affiliation with any other entity. $24/year;

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