Moral Status of Animals from the Perspectives of Western and Islamic Thinkers and the Holy Quran with a Focus on Tafsir al-Mizan

he moral status of animals is an issue that has long been taken into account in the West, but there have been no grounds for its consideration among Islamic thinkers. The perspectives among non-Islamic thinkers on the moral status of animals range from the human-centric—excessiveness—perspective, which regards no creature other than man as holding moral status, to the egocentric—deficiency—perspective, which regards the entire universe as holding status and respect, and are all subject to criticism. As for Islamic thinkers, firstly, they have not addressed the issue in depth; secondly, they will reach the same perspective or at least similar ones, i.e. presence of moral status for animals, if they address the issue given the same basic beliefs that they hold based on their verses and narratives. This paper, which is of the library type, has sought to investigate the moral status of animals from the perspectives of Western and Islamic thinkers and then from that of the Quran with both revealed theological and analytical-descriptive methods. From the Quran’s perspective, presence of moral status features—rationality, purposefulness, and free will—in animals, which are the requirements of independent moral status, seems possible, and, consequently, moral status of animals appears to be believable..