You mean experiments on animals for scientific research? That’s right. Some people take strong exception to this and say that man has no right to subjugate lower beings of lower order to any trouble, any pain, because of his own gains. This is the essential principle involved in this. Now if you apply this principle backwards, then there would not be any mankind at all. Because man has been entirely dependent on subjugating the animals, drinking their milk, eating their meat, and putting them to all sorts of trouble, to plough the fields, to till the land, and so on and so forth, with the result that at a time, and when I say at a time, I mean the greater part of our history, we’ll find man entirely dependent on everything, on animals, and not without putting them to trouble.
So where shall we stop this, and why? And why did we have this right earlier and have no more right now? Now we can use them differently for our benefits and for higher purposes, because now our dependence on them is much less than it used to be previously. Because of machinery, tractors, modes of travel, and so on and so forth, previously in fact animals did everything for mankind. So what is the principle involved? That is to be decided first, whether man is permitted to make use of the lower order of life for his own sake or not, that is the essential question to be answered. If he is permitted, then the only question to be decided is, was it necessary or was it unnecessary to give trouble to some animal?
And this is how we should decide this issue now. Because as far as the first question is concerned, there is no debate about it. Man has always been dependent and will remain to be dependent, and it’s impossible for man to totally ignore putting animals to some trouble for his sake. How far to go, where to stop, this is the question. And this has been answered in the Holy Qur’an, also in the traditions of the Prophet in so many ways. Unnecessary waste is not permitted by the Holy Qur’an. Unnecessary putting somebody else to trouble, even be it an animal, is not permitted in the Holy Qur’an. There has to be some justification, and for that justification you must prove your case that there was no avoidance of situation.
And the alternative choice has also to be studied and brought into focus. Now, this is generalization, I’ll make myself clear by illustrating these things. When you slaughter an animal, you say, Bismillah Allahu Akbar, what does it mean? Why Bismillah? It is like the custom in England, in the name of the king, that you say, we are permitted to do so on the authority of the king. So when you say, Bismillah, it means you are permitted to do so by Allah, the proprietor of all things, the creator of all things.
So that shows that without permission from the creator, you can’t put anybody else to any trouble whatsoever. You can’t take life unless you are permitted to take life in certain situations. So halal and haram, what is permissible and what is not permissible, springs from this fundamental principle. And secondly, we see that animals were treated, apart from these particular permissions to make use of them, for instance, to drink their milk is also permitted. And to use their skins for clothing is also permitted.
All these things have been mentioned in so many words in the Holy Quran, and the traditions of the Holy Prophet throw further light on this. You are permitted, but in a manner as is least painful. You are permitted, but in a manner that no waste is attendant upon that permission. For instance, the Arabs also used to eat meat, but they never cared if a lot of meat also went waste as long as they could show off their grandeur and their generosity and so on and so forth. Islam permitted on the condition that you are permitted to eat thereof and drink thereof, but on the condition that you must not transgress.
You must not overeat, you must not overdrink, you must not waste anything. Use only that much which is necessary and which is really your requirement, do not go beyond it. So Allah prohibited the use of such feasts, also that’s prohibited in the Holy Quran, as are wasteful and are meaningless. Slaughter of such animals as are not required. For instance, there was a custom in Arabia that even if there is one guest to provide him with meat, the man would slaughter his camel, which is a big animal, and would not care even if the rest of the entire animal goes to waste. The guest must be fed with flesh, which is considered best in Arabia, and honour must be saved. That was the spirit of Arab customs. The Holy Quran changed all this spirit and turned life and human relationship into purposeful life and purposeful human relationship.
So now we come back to this question, and before that I must tell you that as far as relationship of man to animals is concerned, apart from these permissions, that relationship is of extreme kindness and consideration. So much so that man is warned that if he is unkind even to animals and hurts them unnecessarily, does not pay any regard to them and their feelings, he will be punished by Allah and even he may go to hell for this crime. This is the importance of life as such in the sight of Allah, as we are told in the Holy Quran and by the Prophet of Islam, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa. I quote two traditions belonging to positive and negative sides.
On the negative side, we find that the Prophet mentioned a woman who was being tortured in hell, being punished for her being callous to animals. It was explained to the Prophet that she was so callous and heartless that she would put a cat in a cage or leave her locked in her house and would not care how much she suffered out of hunger and thirst, and even if she was to return after a few days she would not care. She would just lock the cat on her own and have no regard to her feeling of hunger and thirst. So once when she did it, a cat did actually die of lack of food and lack of water.
That was considered such a big crime in the sight of Allah that she was thrown to hell as punishment. So on the other side, the Holy Prophet of Islam tells us that there was a wicked woman, a wanton woman, who had spent all her life in a loose life, a life of selling her honour for the sake of a few rupees. That’s what a prostitute in fact is described. And she was forgiven by Allah for one kind act of her towards an animal. It is related by the Holy Prophet of Islam that once she was passing by a well in a desert and she saw a thirsty dog with his tongue hanging out and totally dried out.
She took pity on him because there was nothing with her to draw the water from the well. So she made an arrangement, a sort of arrangement, a makeshift arrangement. She took her head cover and her shoes and made an improvised sort of thing to draw water from the well. And she did it until the dog was satiated and passed away, I mean went on her way. And the Holy Prophet tells us that Allah was so pleased with this act of kindness that he forgave all her life of crime and made her enter Jannah, that is the heaven. So this is where we stand in our relationship to animals.
We have no direct personal right to subjugate anything else. We are not the proprietor of things. We are here only as such objects of Allah’s favours who have been placed higher in the order of life with the permission that with purpose you can put other lower animals to use to serve your cause.
And that purpose has also been defined in the Holyppp Quran. Uselessly and unnecessarily you are not permitted to put them to any torture or trouble. And the general principle is to be kind to others, not to be cruel. So in the four walls of this teaching, each action will have to be judged on merit. In another place the Holy Quran tells us that this is one of the greatest favours upon you of Allah, that he has created everything to ultimately serve the purpose of mankind. So the man is placed highest. And if the sacrifice, a small sacrifice on the part of a lower animal creates some goodness of lasting value for mankind who is superior in order, it is permissible. Or the alternative would be even more heinous.
Now here, now pinpointing my attention to the question asked in the backlight of what I have said, the answer has become so easy and understandable now. The fact is that a man puts some animals to trouble for the sake of investigation. For instance, all the vaccines were prepared through such experimentations. And many other vaccines are under preparation today through such experimentations. Animals of much lower order, with apparently less sensitivity and consciousness, are put to certain trouble and certain experiments are made on them. Those of our society who condemn this attitude and say this is cruelty to animals and will not stand for it, what alternative do they leave us?
The alternative would be either to leave all such experimentations and let humanity suffer with all the disease which has been rampant in the past and which has almost been wiped out nowadays. For instance, smallpox. What havoc has it played in the past? Let all, let human beings suffer in multitudes to save suffering of a small animal. That is the balance. No sane man would decide in favor of this objection then. Or the other alternative would be to make human beings suffer, not the animals. And if you take this attitude, this is an impossible attitude anyway. Because it is impossible for you to save animals of lower order to suffer at hands of animals of upper order.
This is a law of nature. Even if you abstain stupidly from this, it is impossible for you to stop this practice in the animal kingdom. Each animal of higher order is flourishing on the animal of the lower order. You want to be kind to insects but you can’t stop the hens pecking insects and all the birds eating insects and living on them, thriving on them. And if you show pity to the insects, you show cruelty to the other side. How are the beasts of jungle thriving? On animals of lower order. How are the birds of prey thriving? On the animals of lower order as compared to them. How everything else is thriving? On the lower life.
The entire life is thriving on vegetation, which is a sort of life too. If you sink lower, the measure of consciousness would be lesser and less, and narrower and narrower, but some sort of consciousness would continue to exist because it is a concomitant of life. It is impossible to consider of life without consciousness of some measure. So it is only comparative value. You sink lower and lower until you reach the animal kingdom. And even if you abstain from meat, even if you don’t drink milk because you are in fact usurping the right of animals’ children. The milk was for the children of the animals, not for you.
So abstain from everything, stop eating anything belonging to the animal kingdom, but still you will not stop the phenomena of thriving on the lower orders. Forget about all the links between you and the vegetable kingdom. Take a direct cross to the vegetable kingdom and start eating vegetables, that’s the least you can do. And still you will be usurping life, because vegetation is also life. And what about the bacteria which you drink, swallow at every mouthful of water you drink, or anything else you use?
Everything is infested with bacteria which is life. And they show signs of consciousness so clearly that they run away from dangers. And they are hungry, they thrive on food, wherever they get. And they thrive on you. So even they take their revenge back. The lower order also, whenever it’s possible, they kick back and take their revenge as best as they can. So you want them, if you are showing that pity to some animals, the net most illogical result of this thinking would be that man has no right to make lower animals suffer for his sake, but he has, he deserves to get a punishment at the hand of the lowest form of life, that is bacteria, on which the experimentation is being carried out. So what logic?
Everything is inverted, upside down. You don’t show pity to man, but show pity to bacteria. They have a right to thrive on man, but man has no right to fend himself and try to improve his capability to defend himself, all upside.
