Animal's Right from an Islamic Perspective

Islam puts great importance on animal's rights and doing justice towards them, considers these rights as "God's rights", and deems all people responsible for animals. One of most important rights of animals is their right of maintenance which includes food, shelter and treatment. Any act which bothers animals physically and mentally and cause them suffering, such as beating, cauterizing, mutilating, overloading, overriding, milking with nails, and hurting at the time of slaughtering are forbidden, because animals have consciousness and feelings. These acts are considered satanic and bad, while friendly, honest and just treatment of animals is always emphasized. Furthermore, cursing, deceiving and separating animals from their foals are disfavored and forbidden, while sheltering harmless animals which seek shelter in man's house is favored. Animals should be utilized properly and their right of mating should not be violated. Therefore, emasculating animals and making them to fight each other is disfavored. According to the injunctions of Islam, we are obliged to preserve the rights of animals. The holy Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him and his progeny) used any occasion to elaborate on animal's rights and the ways of preserving them. In addition, Islamic texts use the term "divine reward" for observing the rights of animals and "divine chastisement" for violating their rights, and refer to other worldly and spiritual rewards. If men fail to observe the rights of animals they will commit sin and will be punished in the day of resurrection. Islam's attention to animals is general and includes those animals whose meat in forbidden to eat and those which are dying. In addition to referring to the rights of animals, Islam points to the reasons of injunctions related to animals.