The Holy Qur’an says: “We sent you not, but as mercy for all creatures.” (Surah: Al-Anbiya, Verse No. 107).
The Prophet preached to people to show kindness not only to each other but also to all living beings. He forbade any form of cruelty to animals.
“Fear Allah in your treatment of animals,” he warned his followers (Sunan Abu Dawood).
According to a well-attested saying of the Prophet, even the sins of a prostitute could be forgiven by acts of kindness to animals.
Abu Hurayra narrated: “The Prophet said, ‘While a dog was going round a well and was about to die of thirst, a prostitute saw it and took off her shoe and drew water for it. So Allah forgave her because of that good deed.’” (Sahih Al-Bukhari)
In another Hadith, the Prophet told his companions about a woman who would be sent to hell for having locked up a cat, not feeding it, nor even releasing it so that it could feed itself.
In another statement the Prophet urged his followers to be kind to animals with a parable. “A man walking down a path felt very thirsty. Reaching a well, he descended into it, drank his fill, and came up. Then he saw a dog with its tongue hanging out, trying to lick up mud to quench its thirst. The man said, ‘This dog is feeling the same thirst that I felt.’ So he went down into the well again, filled his shoe with water, and gave the dog a drink. So, God forgave his sins.”
The Prophet was then asked, “Messenger of God, are we rewarded for kindness toward animals?”
He said: “There is a reward for kindness to every living animal or human.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim).
Instances of the Prophet’s concern for animals and birds abound in the books of authentic traditions.
During a journey, somebody picked up a bird’s eggs. The bird’s painful cries and fluttering attracted the attention of the Prophet. He told the man to put the eggs back to its nest. (Sahih Al-Bukhari).
The Prophet cursed people who treated animals with cruelty. A companion of the Prophet, Abdullah ibn Umar, passed by a group of young men who were shooting at a tied hen. When they saw Abdullah, they dispersed leaving the bird behind. Ibn Umar said, “Who has done this? The Prophet cursed the one who performed such deeds.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari)
Al-Bukhari quotes another tradition in which Ibn Umar said: “The Prophet cursed the one who cut limbs or some other part of a live animal.”
However, the Prophet was pragmatic in his approaches. He did not overlook the fact that animal meat was a major source of food for humans and so it was not reasonable to ban killing animals altogether or to utilize them in farming, travel, freight movement etc. That is why Islam permits to kill animals for food and also in cases when vicious animals and venomous creatures pose a threat to human safety.
However, the permission to kill animals does not mean that anyone can commit deeds of senseless cruelty toward them. The Prophet insisted that an animal should be slaughtered in such a way that it feels minimum pain. “When you slaughter an animal, do it well. You should sharpen your knife so as not to cause a lot of pain to that animal.” (Sahih Muslim)
According to the Prophet’s instructions, a person who is to slaughter an animal should hide his knife from the beast and kill it with a sharp knife in a few seconds.
The Prophet reprimanded a man who he found putting his foot over the neck of a sheep while he was sharpening his knife in front of it. “Do not kill it twice, you should have sharpened it before laying it down,” he said. (Al-Tabrani, Al-Hakem and Al-Albani)
