40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #37 - When Animals Indict Humans for Cruelty
In Hadith #37 of the 40 Hadiths on Social Justice Series, Sh. Omar Suleiman discusses the rights of animals in Islam.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Bismillahir rahmanir raheem. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulihi al kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salamu taslimin kathira. So this is the last halaqa that we're going to have before the month of Ramadan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to live to see it and to benefit from it and to be forgiven through it. Allahuma ameen. Today's class is so rich in terms of its content that it might seem like I'm running down the narrations and offering just a little bit of commentary on them as we go down the narrations. And so I want to encourage you all, inshallah to Allah, I know that especially those of you that have been attending weekly, you take your own set of notes, but we do post professional notes every week, a couple of days after the class. So by Thursday, the professional notes for the class will actually be up online so you can follow along there because you're probably not going to catch every narration or the details of every narration that we go through. But it's just a really rich topic. And before I even talk about this topic in particular, some of you are familiar with the narration, in fact most of you probably are, of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa salam when the funeral of a Jewish man went by him and he was in Medina and he stood up as that funeral passed by and he said to the companions, he justified his standing up, or the Prophet peace be upon him, explained his standing up by saying what? Does anyone remember the exact language, the terminology the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa salam used? Don't be afraid to be wrong. Yeah. English is fine. Okay. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wa salam says, isn't it a human soul? Isn't it a human soul?
The Prophet salallahu alaihi wa salam spoke to the inherent value of a human being. Isn't it a human soul? Meaning even as the body is carried by, there's a soul as well and that is enough to allow that to be a sacred moment or to be a sanctified moment. The topic we're going to talk about today is animal rights. Okay. And it is incredible how much literature exists. And I really do mean incredible about animal rights. And the first thing that you take from that as you're reading through all of these hadith and traditions about the sanctity of animals is if the Prophet peace be upon him was so dedicated to making sure that animals were cared for in the way that he was, then what about human beings? Everything that we speak about in the context of animal rights should be compounded when we talk about human rights. And the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa salam says, so I'll start off with this hadith of the many narrations that we'll go through. It's a hadith in Sahih Muslim by Abdullah bin Abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhu that the Prophet peace be upon him said, la tattakhidhu shay'an feehi alroohu gharada. Again, la tattakhidhu shay'an feehi alroohu gharada. Which translates to, do not take anything containing a soul as a target. Do not take anything containing a soul as a target. Okay. So the Prophet peace be upon him is speaking to the animals in a different way or speaking about the animals in a very different way. Saeed ibn Jubair, may Allah be pleased with him, he narrates that Abdullah bin Umar radiallahu anhu passed by some individuals who had erected a chicken and they were shooting at it. And when they saw Abdullah bin Umar, they knew they were doing something wrong, they quickly moved away from it and dispersed. So he said to them, who did this? And no one took responsibility for it.
So Abdullah bin Umar responded and he said, inna ar-rasoolallahi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam la'na man fa'ala thalik. The Prophet peace be upon him cursed people who do this stuff. He cursed the one who does this. So it starts off with that, with treatment in regards to the way that an animal would be killed. So hunting and these types of things. So is hunting haram? The Prophet peace be upon him said in a hadith from Abdullah bin Umar radiallahu anhu, also authentic, he said that any person who kills even a tiny sparrow without right will be questioned by Allah regarding it. So then it was said, and alhamdulillah the companions asked questions, because if they didn't ask questions and these ahadith just stopped at that, then we'd have a big issue sometimes. They said, ya rasoolallah, what is the right of the sparrow? What is the right of that bird? What is the right of the sparrow? So the Prophet peace be upon him said that it only be sacrificed to feed oneself and that it not be cast aside. That it only be sacrificed to feed oneself and that it not be cast aside. So hunting for sport, if it's just to shoot at things, then that would be impermissible, then that would be haram, even if you're shooting a tiny bird. The only time you should hunt is for the sake of feeding yourself, right, or for the sake of food and sustenance, otherwise it becomes impermissible. And the Prophet peace be upon him paid very close attention to this. And there are a lot of times that we would think that just because, for example, hunting is permissible in the context that it is permissible, that there is a disregard for those particular animals, and that's where the faulty framing starts. If the saliva of a dog is impure, is najas, that must mean we should hate dogs. And if you can hunt birds for the sake of sustenance, that must mean that birds don't matter. And that birds, that there is no sanctity in regards to them.
If you can kill an ant, that must mean that you can kill all ants and you can do whatever you want with them. But it's actually very sophisticated, it's a lot more than that. Abdullah bin Mas'ud says, we were on an expedition with the Messenger of Allah, and he went out to relieve himself, and we saw a red sparrow that had two of her babies with her. A red sparrow that had two of her babies with her. So when we took the babies of that sparrow, the sparrow started to flap her wings in distress. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam came to us, and the wording that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam used, he said, who has devastated this one by taking her children? Like you would think he's talking about a human being. Who has devastated her by taking her children? If you only took that part of the hadith, and you didn't realize the context, you'd think he's talking about it like a human being. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam looked around, and he said, whoever did, let them return the children to her now. Abdullah bin Mas'ud continues, he said, on the same expedition, now we're talking about an expedition here, we're talking about a very important time. And I automatically use this hadith to refute this. Ya Shaykh, how can we talk about animal rights when we have Syria going on, and Palestine, and there's so much to do with human beings, and they're homeless people. Why are we talking about animal shelters? I mean, it doesn't make sense. We'll get to that one day. That's the same logic, too. Ya Shaykh, why do we take care of people in Dallas when things are happening overseas? And the people that say that are not doing anything for the people overseas or the people in Dallas. And the people that say, why do we even talk about animal rights when we've got so many human issues, are not doing anything for human beings. It's an excuse for our laziness. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, did not treat tragedy as an either-or. He looked at each one as its own unique problem that requires a unique solution from a unique place of compassion. So, the same expedition, he's already shocked them by paying attention, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, to that bird.
On the same expedition, he said that we saw an ant colony. When we set up, obviously, these expeditions would last days, weeks, sometimes even months to reach the location. So, there was an ant colony. So, they set, they burned the ant colony, right? Because they were, you know, obviously were setting up in this area, they don't want to get bit by the ants. So, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he came out and he said, who burned this? He said, Ya Rasulallah, we did. He said, no one should punish with fire except for the Lord of Fire. No one should punish with fire except for the Lord of Fire. So, in this expedition, how could it be that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, would disregard human beings, right? If he's paying this much attention to the birds and to the ants. This is a hadith that's narrated in Sunan Abi Dawud and also in Riyadh As-Saliheen. So, that's one framing to take the hunting and the killing and the disregard in that regard, you know, in regards to taking the life of an animal either in cruel fashion or unnecessarily. And then, the second ones are the spiritual incentives. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, says, there are two hadith actually, they're separate narrations. A lot of times they get mixed up. They both have the same lesson, but still it's good to talk about them separately. There's a hadith from Abu Huraira, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, that the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, said, as a man was walking along, his thirst became intense, so he climbed down a well and he drank from it. Then, when he emerged from that well, he found a panting dog licking the dirt from thirst. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is creating a scene, he's giving us the scene. So, that man reflected and he said that, I was thirsty and Allah sustained me. Therefore, I should do the same thing for that dog. So, he went back into the well, he took off his shoe and he filled his shoe with water.
And then, he held it, he climbed towards the dog and he held it for the dog to drink from his shoe. So, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the way the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, even mentions the hadith is quite beautiful. He says, Fashakarallahu lahu. He was grateful to Allah, so he showed shukr to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. He showed gratitude to Allah, so Allah showed gratitude to him. Allah appreciated him and forgave him. Waghafara lahu. You can appreciate Allah, you can show gratitude to Allah, but you can't forgive God, right? So, he showed gratitude to Allah, so Allah showed gratitude to him and forgave him for all of his sins. Okay, in that one moment. And this speaks to the idea that you don't know which one of your good deeds is going to be the one that's going to be accepted by Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, that he forgives you by. And that's a good way to approach life, a good way to approach Ramadan, a good way to approach our good deeds as a whole. Also, to take from this, did the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, or did this man do anything that benefited Allah himself? When he gave water to the dog, why would Allah thank him? He didn't do anything for Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? But when you care for the creation of Allah, that's how you show appreciation to the Creator. So, the language is also very powerful in what it says. And in the hadith, by the way, in the longer version of it, which is in Al-Bukhari and Muslim, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said that in every moist liver, and I'm only saying the translation of these hadiths because of the time constraint, but the Arabic will be posted as well. He said, in every moist liver is an opportunity for reward. That language seems weird, in every moist liver. What the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, means, in every living thing.
But he used a very specific, a very specific languaging. Why? Because if in every moist liver, that means it doesn't matter what animal it is, so dog, cat, whatever it may be, it doesn't matter how pretty the animal is, it doesn't matter if the animal's saliva is najas or not, impure or not, all of that is completely irrelevant to the discussion of charity towards animals. So, in every moist liver, there's an opportunity for ajr, an opportunity for reward from Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. The other narration the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, mentions, also authentic, that as a dog was circling around a well on the verge of dying from thirst, a prostitute from Bani Israel saw that dog. So she removed her shoe, and she collected some water for that dog, and for that, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, faghafara laha, aw faghufira laha bihi. Allah forgave her for that act, meaning forgave her for everything that she had done for that act. Some of the scholars mention in that particular hadith, the wisdom of that, that Allah forgave her for that. It's not that the woman said, I can justify everything that I am doing by doing this one act. It's that that woman acted in a moment of sincerity. And Allah knows it could have been a catalyst for something else that took place in her life. Maybe there was a reminder to her that Allah will sustain her the way that she sustained that dog, or Allah sustained that dog through her, and she doesn't have to resort to something that's haram, that's prohibited, in order to sustain herself. So there's a lot that's lost often in these hadiths, and we're supposed to take the lesson. And in our day and age, it's really interesting. I've just noticed that every time I teach a class, the questions that I get every single time, this isn't to discourage any of you from asking questions, but we get weirder and more specific every single time.
Because we've been taught to always reach for the irrelevant details. Like Shaykh, if she was a prostitute, why was she wearing shoes? Like something like that. I get asked these strange questions every single time. I'm like, where did these questions come out of? But it's reach for this irrelevant detail. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam wants you to take a lesson. So he didn't give you the biographical details of this woman, and tell you what happened before and after, to make you feel good, because لها ما كسبت وعليك ما كسبت She will have her reckoning with Allah, and you will have your reckoning with Allah. All of that is irrelevant. So it's to take a lesson from it, in whatever capacity you can. And of course, the opposite of that, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned a woman who tortured a cat, and she trapped it until it died, and she entered the hellfire as a result. Neither did she fear her, nor give her anything to drink, nor did she leave her to eat from the insects of the earth. So she did not provide for her, nor did she allow her to eat from the insects of the earth. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam here is mentioning imprisonment of that cat. So for example, how would a faqih approach this? How would a jurist approach this? Is it impermissible to keep a cat temporarily in a cage? From a fiqh perspective, from a jurisprudence perspective. Not if you feed it, okay? So not if you're providing for it, but it should be for what's necessary. It can't be that you want to leave it in a permanent state in that cage, but it should be for what's necessary, or to keep it in a small cramped space where it would affect that cat's well-being. But if you're feeding it and taking care of it, then it doesn't apply. If you think about this particular thing, so the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam did not just condemn the woman caging the cat, but again, not allowing her to even eat from the insects of the earth.
So you have the state of ihsan, excellence, in regards to the woman that provided for the dog, and you have in this case the epitome of cruelty. And that's where Jannah and Nar are, paradise and hellfire are. Think about the attitude of Muslims towards dogs. Now, I'm really serious about this. A religious Muslim in the 21st century walking in a park and sees a dog come by, and I'm not going to make a panting motion because people would enjoy that too much, and they'd make fun of me, but imagine you're walking in the park and a dog starts panting, and the dog comes close to you. As a religiously inclined Muslim, it's like, get away, don't mess up my wudu. You're not going to think about feeding or providing for the dog or showing some sort of kindness to the dog. That's not deen, that's culture. That's not deen, that's culture. That has nothing to do with the religion. That's all culture. Somehow, though, we take the culture, we start with a place of culture, and then we find the religion and throw it in there as well. So the hadith that's mentioned here in regards to this woman obviously gives the opposite of that. The Prophet also mentioned or he spoke quite a bit about the overburdened animal, the animal that's overburdened, and this is an animal that is used for some sort of benefit beyond simply taking care of it or feeding it or being fed from it, beyond that. I love these ahadith when you read them in their detail. Abdullah ibn Ja'far radhiAllahu ta'ala anhu, he narrates that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam entered the garden of an Ansari man and he found a camel inside that garden. When the camel saw the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam, it whimpered and its eyes overflowed as if it was complaining to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam. So he said the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam went to the camel and he started to wipe its tears.
Again, you would think it's a human being. SubhanAllah, from the amount of compassion that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam is showing to this animal. So he said that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam comforted the camel and wiped its tears. And when the man came out, the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, whose camel is this? Whose camel is this? So he said, it's mine. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, won't you fear Allah regarding these beasts which Allah has placed in your possessions? For it has complained to me that you starve it and that you overwork it. The camel complained to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam that it was being starved and overworked. And again, the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam always uses a languaging that's consistent. By now, in these last few hadith, you should compare this to how the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam taught us to deal with our children, how to deal with our spouses, in the era of al-riq, which again, slavery or whatever it may be, how you deal with those captives of war. So, it's always related to authority. If Allah has given you authority over someone or something, shouldn't you show compassion with it? So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam is saying, won't you show compassion, or won't you fear Allah regarding these beasts that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has placed in your possession? For it has complained to me that you starve it and you overwork it. It's also a hadith in Abu Dawud, and it's authentic. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam mentioned, because again, not all animals can complain to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam. And no, Dr. Doolittle is not a real thing. Only half of you left, which scares me. I need to come up with a more relevant example, don't I? Alright, can't talk to animals, right? We don't get to talk to animals or understand them. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam says, this is a hadith from Sahal al-Hanthaliya radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. Sahal ibn al-Hanthaliya, he said that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam once passed by a camel whose back neared its stomach.
Meaning the camel clearly was showing signs of being overburdened. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, fear Allah regarding these beasts who cannot speak for themselves. Fear Allah regarding these beasts who cannot speak for themselves. He said, ride them healthy and eat them healthy. Meaning while they're living, you show them mercy and when you take their lives, when you have to sacrifice a camel or an animal, that's a new word, when you have to sacrifice an animal or an animal, then show mercy. Ride it healthy and make sure that you also eat them healthy, you sacrifice it healthy. So fear Allah regarding these animals who cannot speak for themselves. Now obviously on the Day of Judgment, everything speaks. The land will speak. The water will speak. The environment will speak. Everything will speak. So yes, animals too will speak. The hands will speak. The tongue will speak. The ears will speak. The eyes will speak. The feet will speak. Everything speaks, right? Testifies on the Day of Judgment. So that too is the case when it comes to the beasts. What else could the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam... Think about it this way. Let's say that you're in a society where you have horses and camels as your main mode of transportation. What else could be the right of that camel or that horse? What do you guys think? What did you say? Rest? Absolutely. Cleaning after them? Okay, absolutely. What about, like, picture this. Two people riding their horses or their camels in the streets, and then they stop, like, let's say when you're in a neighborhood and you're in your car, and you both stop and you start, you roll down your window and start talking to each other. Right? So think about Medina, okay? Two people riding their camel across the street,
and they stop to have a conversation with each other. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam, he said, beware, this is a hadith in Abu Dawud and Ahmed, he said, beware of taking the backs of your riding animals as pulpits. For Allah has only made them to deliver you to a place which you would otherwise not reach without great exertion. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam prohibited people from talking too long while they sat on their animals. And another one, he said, do not take them as couches for your street and market conversations. Also an authentic hadith. Like, don't hang out on your animals when you talk to people. That's the extent of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam taking care of these animals. And you know, that speaks to beyond just the physical, the physical burden, that there are things that this society did not even think about. And that culture, that culture was created where you had a society that would bury little girls alive, and now you have the same people that used to find that tolerable, fearing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala about their animals testifying against them on the Day of Judgment. Like, they went from treating their daughters as less than human, to not only fully embracing what Allah gave them as a gift and highlighting their rights, to now even treating animals with the same rights as human beings, in ways that other societies did not even treat human beings. Mu'awiyah ibn Qura, he narrates from his father that a man said to the Messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi wasalaam, that, oh Messenger of Allah, I slaughter a lamb and I feel mercy for it. So basically he's saying, he's complaining to the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam that when he sacrifices, he's one of the tender-hearted people, he feels a sense of mercy. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam, he said, if you have mercy on the lamb, Allah will have mercy on you.
You have mercy on the lamb, Allah will have mercy on you. In the hadith, irhamu man fil ardi, irhamukum man fil samaa, show mercy to those on this earth, the one in the heavens will show mercy to you. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam is using that same languaging as well when he speaks about that lamb. And that's why the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam, he saw someone laying down a lamb, while still sharpening the blade in front of it. And the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, do you wish to kill it twice? Couldn't you have sharpened that blade before you laid it down? And that's why the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, don't cause the animal distress in the way that you slaughter the animal. That's one of the halal things too, by the way. If you're talking about how to make your slaughter halal, your dhabihah halal, the way that the slaughter takes place should be done in a way that's not cruel. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, don't kill it twice. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam also forbade branding. Jabir ibn Abdillah, I'll just mention one hadith here. He said that the Prophet, peace be upon him, passed by a donkey whose face was branded. Again, a donkey was looked at as not a very prized riding animal. It was the lowest of the animals in terms of riding animals. So he saw a donkey whose face was branded. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said to the owner, has it not reached you that I have cursed those who brand animals in their faces or strike them in their faces? So even hitting an animal in the face. The Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, did it not reach you that I cursed people who brand animals in the face or who hit them in the face? And again, he was speaking about a donkey. Another hadith, the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam passed by a camel whose face was branded by fire. And the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, what is this branding? And al-Abbas radiallahu anhu said, this is the branding we used to do in jahiliyyah, in the days of ignorance. So the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam said, do not brand with the fire. Allah punishes with fire. Do not brand with the fire.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala punishes with fire. What about other kindness that the Prophet peace be upon him spoke about? Or what was lived in the culture of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalaam? An authentic hadith in Muslim Imam Ahmed, a man once visited the great companion Tamim al-Dari radiallahu anhu. And Tamim al-Dari was the governor of Jerusalem, al-Quds. So he found Tamim, there's so much beauty in this, he found Tamim, who was the governor of Jerusalem. And when you think the governor of Jerusalem at that time, and a great companion like Tamim al-Dari, you're automatically getting, you have this impression of great royalty. So he sees Tamim cleaning the wheat for his horse. So, you know, making sure that the food that he feeds him is clean. So the man said to Tamim, don't you have someone who could do that for you? Like, do you really have to be the one that sits there and cleans the wheat for your horse? You're the governor of Jerusalem. So he responded, he said, I do, but I heard the messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi wasalaam say, no Muslim cleans his horse's wheat and then serves it to him, except that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has written for him a good deed for every grain of that wheat. Hadith al-Sahih. I mean, that should change immediately the way that you deal with every animal that you see outside. Subhanallah, think about the Muslim world, where cats look like rats, because of the neglect. If they knew the ajr, if they knew the good deed that was in feeding each and every single one of those animals, what would they do? So Tamim knows that daddy, and this is the spiritual incentive that we spoke about last week, that goes beyond simple policy. Tamim, as the governor of Jerusalem, is not belittling the reward in cleaning the wheat,
in washing and cleaning the wheat that he would give to his horse, because there is a reward in that. And Aisha, this is not a very well-known hadith, but it's an authentic hadith also, in a silsila al-sahih, it's narrated in al-Tabarani. She says that the messenger of Allah, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, when he would see a cat, he would tilt his vessel, his wudu' vessel, the vessel that he would perform the wudu' from, the ablution from, and he would wait for that cat to finish drinking. And then the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, would use what was left of it to make his wudu' and then he would give the rest of the water, whatever was not needed for his wudu', he would give it back to the cat. So even the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, was paying attention to his vessel of wudu' with a cat that was around him. There's of course animal cruelty as it exists in other ways, obviously gambling and pit bull fighting and all that type of stuff. The Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, there's a hadith from Ibn Abbas, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, that he forbade instigating fights between animals or doing this as a form of game. It was common in their culture, it's still common in our culture today. The Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, also forbade, and this is one that requires some level of explanation in terms of the jurisprudence of it, the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalaam, forbade castrating animals, particularly the hadith mentions al-khayl wa-l-bahaym, so it's the bigger animals, cows and camels and horses and things of that sort. So what does this mean in terms of neutering cats? Is it permissible or not permissible? Many of the scholars spoke about it and they said that if the choices between not bringing cats in and taking care of them and neutering them because you can't handle the burden of those cats, then it's better to do that,
because this is not a definitive practice in regards to the smaller animals, it was referring to the larger animals. But still, just by using analogy, if a person can avoid doing that, they should avoid doing that. So the choices between this or abandoning those cats, abandoning those animals, because if we bring the cat in, we're going to have to worry about a bunch of cats, then it's better for a person to neuter the cat instead of not bringing a cat in at all. So still, the scholars spoke about it in many situations relating it to the bigger animals, and obviously it would be haram to do so unnecessarily at all with no reason whatsoever. Declawing the animals is something the scholars spoke against very heavily. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he also mentioned in terms of space and in terms of the way that you walk and the way that you drive, the way that you also deal with the land that is around you. He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when you travel, in an authentic Hadith in Muslim, when you travel during a green pasture period, give the animals their share of grazing the earth, for they are entitled to the mercy of Allah just like you. So the way that you even traverse the land, you should consider these things. We know Allah Azawajal mentions to us the story of Suleiman, the Prophet Solomon, and burning the ant pile. This is something that we find the scholars paid very close attention to, the companions paid very close attention to. Abu Darda, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, as he was on his deathbed, Abu Darda obviously is one of the great Muftis of the companions. As he was on his deathbed, he looked towards his camel and he said, O camel, do not indict me with your Lord, for I never made you carry beyond your capacity. As he's bidding farewell to his family, he looks to the camel that he used to ride and he's testifying that he never wronged that camel.
O camel, do not indict me with your Lord, because I never overburdened you beyond your capacity. Adi ibn Hatim, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, it's narrated that he used to crush bread for the ants. This is one that a lot of people have a hard time swallowing. He used to crush bread for the ants and he used to say, they are our neighbors and they have a right upon us. That doesn't mean bring ants into your house, but that shows you that some of these people really took this seriously to the extent that they cared for the insects that were on the outside as well. Umar ibn al-Khattab, radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, he once saw, I'm just going through the narrations and just commenting on them as I said. Umar, radiyaAllahu anhu, he once saw a man that was dragging a lamb by its foot to the slaughter and he said, woe to you, lead it to its death beautifully. So Umar, radiyaAllahu anhu, even paying attention to the way that you treat an animal that you're going to slaughter beyond just not showing it the knife that you would use for sacrifice, even in the treatment of it beforehand. There's a narration from Abu Ishaq that he walked with his companions when a dog appeared upon the road. And so when one of the companions rebuked him, the imam stopped and he said, don't you know that the road, this road is a mutual entitlement between us, that it has its share of this road as I have this share of the road as well. There's a beautiful story about Amr ibn al-As, radiyaAllahu anhu. When Amr ibn al-As conquered Egypt, there was a pigeon that landed on his tent. Okay? So it landed on his tent and it actually formed a nest and it laid an egg on his tent. So when Amr ibn al-As was leaving, he saw that pigeon and he chose not to remove the tent. He just left it there. So what actually ended up happening is people started to build around that tent.
It became sort of a symbol that this is where Amr ibn al-As set up his tent. He never removed it because of the bird that set itself up there. And that became a city in Muslim Egypt and in fact that's why the city is actually called today Fustat, which means tent. So till today that city where Amr ibn al-As set up his tent and he left it there and people after he left it there started building around it and they didn't touch that tent. They actually named the city Fustat, which means tent. There are other narrations, one of them about Amr ibn al-Aziz, radiyaAllahu anhu, that Amr ibn al-Aziz issued a decree that no one should kick his horse except for a need and that he used to have his patrolmen ensure that nobody was being cruel to their horses or poking them with sticks or donning them in heavy rains. And he wrote to his governor in Egypt, Amr ibn al-Aziz was very specific about the reforms that he made. He wrote to his governor in Egypt, he said that it has reached me that in Egypt the delivery camels, so they didn't have trucks, they had camels to do their deliveries, that people would put a thousand rats, which is about 380 kilograms, on their backs. So he said, let me not discover that any camel under my protection in my ummah is carrying over 600, which is about 228 kilograms. It's actually one of those precise measurements. So he almost cut it in half, radiyaAllahu anhu, and he said, I don't want to ever hear about a camel that's carrying more than that. So you find in early Islamic history, we talked about al-Qaf last week, we talked about endowments. There are things that people laid down as rules that we wouldn't even imagine nowadays.
You'll find entire chapters in books of jurisprudence and books of fiqh about a blind cat straying into your house. What do you do if a blind cat strays into your house? And the scholars would write that that blind cat now has established a right upon you. It is your duty to take care of that cat. So Allah basically sent that cat to your house, you've got to do what you've got to do. Some of you know this about my mother, may Allah have mercy on her. My house was full of cats, like seriously full of cats. I'd wake up every day with a new family member. It got to a point where there were over 10 cats at some point coming in and out of the house growing up. So we just had cats everywhere. How do we have cats everywhere? My mom would just start feeding them outside, and the next thing you know, they'd come into the house sometimes, for like a few weeks they'd only let her touch them, and then slowly she'd introduce the rest of us to our new brother or sister as they came into the house. That was really amazing, I mean we'd give them names, that's how we, we never bought a cat. When people would come into our house and be like, did you guys purchase cats? We'd be like, no it's just our mom. She just goes out and starts playing with cats, feeding these cats, and the next thing you know, they're in our house at some point. So the ulama actually talked about this, scholars actually talked about this. They spoke about it as Allah's delivering a gift to you. There's a stray animal that ends up under your protection, then care for it. That's Allah giving you an opportunity for ajr, Allah giving you an opportunity for good deeds. So all of these different things existed. The awqaf, as I mentioned last week, which were a hallmark of the Islamic civilization, unmatched, truly unmatched in history. These endowments covered the needs of animals to a point that we said that there were hospitals that were covered through these endowments for elderly animals, you know, retired animals.
Al-Marj al-Akhdar, for example, was a pastor in Damascus. If you look up al-Marj al-Akhdar, and maybe inshallah, yaqeen, we're going to do some research on the awqaf, on some of the endowments that exist in Islamic history. That's one of the things that we want to research, is actually list them all out. What were the endowments that existed, and what are some of the current lessons that we could draw. Al-Marj al-Akhdar was a pastor in Damascus for animals that had a difficulty fetching for themselves. It was a pastor for them to be able to fetch for themselves. You can even find in Al-Sham madrasat al-qatat, which literally would translate into the school of cats, where cats would be taken care of. The word that was used was madrasah, because they would be trained to take care of themselves and things of that sort. You can find, and yes, you can actually find a waqf in history, mukhayyamat al-kilab, refugee camps for dogs. That's how you translate it into, mukhayyam refers to a refugee camp. That stray dogs would be sheltered and treated in different parts of the ummah in Damascus and otherwise, when we look in our Islamic history. I'll leave you with one narration, inshallah ta'ala, then I'll just give a few thoughts, and then I'll open it up to questions. There is this hadith where the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, was on his way in Hudaibiyah, the treaty of Hudaibiyah to Mecca, and the camel of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, refused to move forward. The sahaba, some of the companions, they said, khalatil qaswa, qaswa, which is the name of the camel, has become stubborn. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, actually took up for the camel and said, wallahi ma kharatil qaswa, that I swear by Allah, qaswa is not stubborn, wa ma thalika laha bikhuluk,
and that's not a proper trait to attribute to qaswa, wa innama habisaha habisul fil, what held qaswa back is what held the elephants back when they were on their way to destroy the Kaaba, when Abraha was taking them to destroy the Kaaba. The scholars draw so much from that. The Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, was literally sticking up for an animal. He took up for that camel that it's inappropriate for you to say these things about that animal, to speak about it that way. Don't wrong that animal by giving it a trait that is not true to it. Even when we think about human beings defining people by their worth, or something that we perceive in an instance, and then defining them by that trait, the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said it's not fair for you to attribute stubbornness to a camel that's been a good camel. So wa maa dharika lahabi khuluk, but Allah stopped that. He stopped the camel for something else. The scholars, and I guess this is the point that I really want to end on, when there are things that are on this earth, people or things, that are completely at our mercy, they are just as much a test for us as we are for them. That's an opportunity, and you are supposed to be learning something about your existence, your very purpose, in the presence of those people or those things. And so the ihsan, the excellence that these, and that's where the incentive comes from, the spiritual incentive comes from. The spiritual incentive does not mean that had the spiritual incentive not been there, you would not have taken care of people, or animals, or what it may be that's vulnerable, or that's in need. But it makes you act with a certain level of ihsan, with excellence, going the extra mile. So this was a training that these people had for themselves. It was interesting.
Sheikh Mohammed al-Shanay was actually sharing this with me and I found it very beautiful. He was saying that there's a narration of one of the Salaf, one of the pious predecessors. I believe it was Imam al-Subqi, who's not one of the pious predecessors, but who comes later on, but that his son saw a dog outside and he said, ikhfa, go away, ya kalb ibn al-kalb. And all he said was, he called it a dog, the son of a dog. Kalb ibn al-kalb. And al-Subqi called him, he said, come here, ya walad, oh boy. Right, so he didn't address him as his son, he called him as a boy. And he said, what is it? He said, don't you know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has prohibited, he said, what I said was factual, it's a dog, right, I didn't say anything wrong, I didn't insult the dog, I just called it a dog. That's how we're clever, right, I just called it a dog. I didn't say anything that's like in backbiting, right. I would say it to his face, but we're talking about a dog now, all right. Again, that filthy animal, all right. So he said, I just called it a dog, I didn't say anything. And he told him, don't you know that the permissibility of speaking about something in its factual sense is that there's no ill intent, there is no intention to insult behind it. So you can speak about someone in a factual sense and not say anything that's incorrect, but if the intention is to insult, then it's still haram for you, it's still bad character, bad manners on your part. So he was actually holding his son accountable for the way his son spoke to that dog, right. And that's something that, I mean, I know that these standards, especially Adi ibn Hatim taking bread out, bread crumbs to ants, like I know that these are standards that are very difficult for us to apply, but at the same time, it says something about our tradition of speaking against animal cruelty
and actually spiritually feeling the incentive to do things for animals that other people would not even think about doing, okay. And that there is an adjad in that, there's a good deed in that. And that might be the action that gets you into Jannah. So there's the cruelty piece of this that Islam as a tradition preceded, others in regards to how it spoke about cruelty, the way animals are killed, the way they should be treated, the way insects should be treated, all of that. But then there is, of course, not merely avoiding putting an animal through agony, but at the same time, you yourself feeling and showing mercy towards these animals because you know that the dependence that you have on your creator is far more, far greater than the dependence that those animals have upon you. So you pay attention to these things that other people do not pay attention to. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to treat everything around us in the prophetic way of ihsan, of excellence, in whatever capacity it may be. This reminds me of a saying from one of the scholars. He said that if we treated our friends the way that the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam treated his enemies, then we would be good. The standards are elevated, and that's really the point here, is to start with the standard, inshallah, and then draw out from that standard our present-day implementation. So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to rise to that level of ihsan, that level of excellence. Allahumma ameen. Questions? Yeah.
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