[68] Yasts, xiii. 154.
[69] Shâyast Lâ-Shâyast, x. 8.
[70] Darmesteter, in Le Zend-Avesta, i. p. cvi.
[71] Firdausi, quoted by Jones, ‘Tenth Anniversary Discourse,’ in Asiatick Researches, iv. 12.
[72] Polak, Persien, i. 12.
According to Muhammedanism, beasts, birds, fish, insects, are all, like man, the slaves of God, the tools of His will. There is no intrinsic distinction between them and the human species, except what accidental diversity God may have been pleased to make.[73] Muhammed said to his followers:—“There is not a beast upon the earth nor a bird that flies with both its wings, but is a nation like to you; … to their Lord shall they be gathered.”[74] Muhammedan law prescribes that domestic animals shall be treated with consideration and not be overworked;[75] and in various Muhammedan countries this law has also been habitually put into practice. The Moslems of India are kind to animals.[76] In his earlier intercourse with the people of Egypt, Mr. Lane noticed much humanity to beasts.[77] Montaigne said that the Turks gave alms to brutes and had hospitals for them;[78] and Mr. Bosworth Smith is of opinion that beasts of burden and domestic animals are nowhere in Christendom with the one exception, perhaps, of Norway treated with such unvarying kindness and consideration as they are in Turkey. “In the East,” he adds, “so far as it has not been hardened by the West, there is a real sympathy between man and the domestic animals; they understand one another.”[79]
[73] Cf. Palgrave, Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, i. 368.
[74] Koran, vi. 38.
[75] Sachau, Muhammedanisches Recht, pp. 18, 103.
[76] Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, pp. 176, 177, 247. Cf. Heber, Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, ii. 131.