How Animals Rights Are Protected In Islam?

I see people, you know, they fight for animal rights. There are animals that are extinct. There are groups, advocacy groups that fight for animals that are going extinct, but not Muslims. Muslims remain quiet. While our Qur'an, our Ahadith, our Ahl ul-Bayt, they fought for animal rights. Look at the Qur'an:

"Wa ma min dabbatin fi 'l-ardhi" (6:38), there is not an animal on earth, "wa la ta'iron yateeru bi janahayh' (6:38) and not a single bird that flies with its two wings, "illa umamun amthalakum" (6:38), there are nations just like you, just like we humans we are nations, so are animals, they are nations. 'Ma farraqna fi 'l-kitaabi min shay' thumma ila Rabbihim yuhsharoon' (6:38).

Animals will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment. To do what? An animal will come and will say, my Lord, this individual hurt me. This individual abused me. This individual did not give me my rights. This individual did not feed me. You know there was a scholar who passed away in his youth, Sayyid Muhammad Ridha ash-Shirazi, rahmatu Allahi alayh. Maybe some of you know him. Maybe some of you even met him. I do not know. They say that in his house, he lived in Qum, they had a problem of ants. There was a lot of ants. His family wanted to bring what do you call it? Raid or whatever, to destroy the ants. He said, no, just like we live in this house, ants live in this house. They also live with us in the house. He refused to hurt ants. This is the teachings of Islam, that we do not even hurt animals.

I see on Twitter sometimes pictures of these crazy people. They go and hunt giraffes, and they take pictures and they smile. Have you seen that on social media? They take a picture with a huge giraffe, a beautiful animal. Why would you kill that animal? And they take a picture a selfie with a giraffe, a dead giraffe, or the tiger. They are carrying a tiger. If you are brave, you carry that tiger when it is alive not when it is dead, and they take a selfie for people to like and retweet. You kill an animal for a couple of likes and retweets?

What will you answer God on the Day of Judgment. Islam frowns upon this. Fuqaha (scholars) tell us that if you had water enough only to drink or for a wudhu, what should you do? Perform wudhu and go thirsty or drink the water and perform tayamum? All scholars say perform tayamum, you do not need to perform wudhu. Drink water. Some say no, not just you, your animal. If you have a horse, your water is enough only for your horse to drink. Or you perform a wudhu. Which one is more important? Scholars say, feed your animal, and you go do Tayamum. Do not do wudhu, save your animal!

Let your animal drink water you go and do tayamum because wudhu has a replacement, there is tayammum. But an animal cannot be replaced. This is a life that you will be taking away. Rasul Allah would tell us the rights of animals. I mentioned this a couple of days ago when we talked about superstition. Animals have rights! One, you feed it whenever you stop. Two, you give it water. Whenever you see water, As-salamu alayka ya Aba Abdillah. Islam teaches us to feed animals, let alone human beings. Islam teaches us to quench the thirst of animals, let alone human beings. Do not hit it on its face, do not stand on its back, do not put weight on it more than it can handle. And do not let it walk more than it could handle.

These are Islamic traditions. These are animal rights in Islam. another Hadith by Rasul Allah that says: do not harm animals, Allah will punish those that harm animals. And we should forgive disobedient animals. If you have a disobedient pet, a disobedient animal, forgive them, forgive that animal. And there is a reward subhana Allah. There is a reward for those that forgive a disobedient pet, and a disobedient animal. Where do you find this other than in Islam?

Rasul Allah forbade animal fights. Here in the West, right, the worlds leading civilization, you find cock fights, bull fights, all kinds of fights. They bet on animals fighting, animals killing each other. Islam came and said, no, this is haram. There is no such thing as bull fights or cock fights, or animal fights. Just so that you sit and you enjoy animals fighting. No, this is haram.

There is no animal fights in Islam. There is no betting on animal fights. This is wrong. This is immoral. Rasul Allah says that on the Day of Judgment, a small bird, if you killed a small bird for fun, for leisure, for entertainment, not because you wanted to eat it, that small bird will come on the Day of Judgment and will complain to Allah that this person killed me just for the sake of fun. You wanted to have a good time. A small bird will complain on the Day of Judgment.