Many other Muslim authorities have also given juristic opinions (fatawa) to the effect that, after
slaughter, time should be given for the rigor mortis to set in before cutting up the carcass. (Kitab
al-Nil wa Shifa'al-Alil, 4:460)
Another malpractice in Arabia in those days, which caused pain and discomfort to the animals,
was stopped by the Holy Prophet in these words: "Do not store milk in the udders of animals…."
(Muslim and Bukhari. Also Holy Traditions; 1st Edition; Vol. 1; Muhammad Manzur Ilahi; Ripon
Press, Lahore, Pakistan; 1932; p. 149)
Not only physical but also emotional care of animals was so much emphasized by the Holy
Prophet that he once reprimanded his wife, A'ishah, for treating a camel a bit offhandedly.
Hazrat A'ishah herself narrates: "I was riding a restive camel and turned it rather roughly. The
Prophet said to me: 'It behooves you to treat the animals gently.'" (Narrated by A'ishah. Muslim,
Vol. 4, Hadith No. 2593. Also Awn, 7:155, Hadith No. 2461; [Ref. No. 32]).
The Holy Prophet himself was once reprimanded by God for neglecting his horse, as the
following Hadith tells us: "The Prophet was seen wiping the face of his horse with his gown
(jullabiyah). When asked why he was doing that, he replied: 'Last night I had a reprimand from
Allah regarding my horse for having neglected him.'" (Narrated by Yahya bin Said. "Malik bin
Anas al-Asbhahi." Also Al-Muwatta, (in English); Divan Press, Norwich, England; 1982; p. 205.)
The following Hadith forbids the disfiguration of the body of an animal.
The Prophet said: "Do not clip the forelock of a horse, for a decency is attached to its
forelock; nor its mane, for it protects it; nor its tail, for it is its fly-flap." (Narrated by 'Utbah
ibn Farqad Abu Abdillah al-Sulami. Abu Dawud. Also Awn, 7:216, 217, Hadith No. 2525
[Ref. No. 32])
The incidents of the Holy Prophet Muhammad's personal grooming of his horse; his wife
A'ishah's rough handling of her camel; the Holy Prophet's prohibition of cutting forelocks, the
mane or tail; the condemnation of striking and branding on the face or ears — all these and
many other such Ahadith show that this great man, Muhammad, had realized even fourteen
centuries ago that animals have a sense of adornment and sensitivity.
Animal Sacrifice
It is not their flesh, nor their blood, that reaches Allah; it is your righteousness {piety and
spiritual volition} that reaches Him….Their flesh will never reach Allah, nor yet their
blood, but your devotion will reach Him. (Qur'an 22:37)
The main purpose of allowing Muslims to continue with animal sacrifices was to turn this
tradition into an institution of charity. All the verses of the Qur'an Majeed that deal with the
subject wind up with the proviso that the meat be fed to the poor, the needy, those who are too
modest to beg as well as the mendicants — those who beg openly (Qur'an, 2:196; 22:28; 35-
37).
In some cases, the offerers of the sacrifice are allowed to consume a portion of the meat
themselves, while in others the whole of the carcass is to be given in charity. Sacrifice is meant
to be an act of worship and thanksgiving to solicit the approbation of God, neither in the sense
of atonement nor in the sense of transposing one's sins onto a scapegoat; but it is meant to be
an act of benevolence (Ihsan) to fulfill a social obligation. After reading the Qur'anic version of
sacrifice, there remains no doubt in one's mind that any sacrifice that is allowed to go to waste
is a sinful as well as a criminal violation of the Islamic law (Shari'ah). Verses 22:36 and 37 make
this proviso abundantly clear.
The Qur'anic injunctions are so exacting on the point of not taking the life of an animal without a
justifiable cause (Be-ghair-e-haqqin) that wasting meat, even by offering it to deities and gods,
is called a devilish act.
During the early period of Islam the traditional offerings of animals made some sense. Meat was
then an important ingredient of human diet and not even a scrap of it was wasted. Today we
have made their killing an empty ritual and forgotten the intent.
A learned Muslim scholar, Sheikh Farid Wagdi, says in his Wagdi's Encyclopaedia Article on
Sacrifice that there might come a day when Muslims shall have to substitute the rite of animal
sacrifice with other methods of giving alms.
The Importance of Respecting the Balance of Nature
"Those who take undue advantage of other species break the Divine Law of equilibrium in
nature — and nature never forgives." The Qur'an Majeed dwells on this theme recurrently, such
as:
Allah has not created all this without truth {Haque} (Qur'an.10:5), for it is He who created
everything and ordained it with due potential {Taqdir} (Qur'an.25:2) not to allow any
change to corrupt what Allah has created (Qur'an.30:30).
Then a warning is given to those people who are guilty of infraction, in these words:
Do they not know how many We have annihilated before them — those whom We had
established on earth as more powerful than We have established you? (Qur'an.6:6)
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