By: Areeba Chaudhry
TRIGGER WARNING: ANIMAL ABUSE
Sometimes I wonder if religion really is as cruel as humans make it seem or have we twisted it into something that supports our sick minds? I think it’s the latter, why else would we use it as a shield to hide behind and to justify the cruelty, violence we dole out on humans, animals and the beings that rely on us, trust us to keep them safe. I think, knowing that they have religion to legitimize, defend their morbid savagery makes it easier for the monsters amongst us to sleep at night. However, the main question that comes to mind is that does Islam or any religion really legitimizes violence, cruelty?
The answer, according to me is a simple and definite no, it doesn’t. You don’t really need to look hard to find these people, this world is full of them, some you come across will be worse than the others. Growing up, I’ve heard phrases like “dogs are haram, filthy, vicious, etc.” this hate right here is what leads to our society treating them so bad that it’s heart-wrenching. They say it’s our religion that teaches us to kill them in cold blood, I ask how can a religion that delivers the message of peace and kindness, that says: “every kind deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being” ( Bukhari) support this heinous act of torturing and killing any living being for no reason? Aren’t we told to fear God in the treatment of the mute beasts then why don’t we? Why do we think that they don’t feel anything, that their lives don’t matter? Why can’t we stop for one second and think about them too? How many animals do we crush under our vehicles every day because we can’t afford to be a few minutes late? Is taking a life really worth it? How many of us actually stop to see if that animal is alive and help it? What we really do is act as if it isn’t our fault but the animals for getting crushed under our cars and that it isn’t really our responsibility to stop for a second and put them out of their misery or save their lives, how long does it take? Apparently very long and our time is a lot more precious than somebody’s life. Ever thought how much that being must have suffered before finally taking its last breath? Not every injury results in immediate death, some lead to a slow painful death but we brush it off so casually as if it isn’t worth wasting our breath over. Are we any better than the ones who do it intentionally and take pleasure in it?
53,726 stray dogs were killed in cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas between the months of November 2019 and May 2020. This is a small number compared to the number of dogs killed annually all over the country, yet their numbers keep on increasing and they become more and more aggressive, who can blame them though? How would you feel if someone poisoned your mother, kids, and family in front of you? How would you feel if people threw stones at you because you took a chance and asked for some food to feed your babies? How would you feel if someone shot you in your sleep and left you to slowly bleed to death not even bothering to put you out of your misery and finish the job? How would it feel to live with 19 pellets in your body? How would it feel to see your loved ones writhing in pain and agony, the life slowly slipping out from their eyes while not knowing what happened to them and not being able to do something? How would you feel if you trusted someone, ate what they gave you only to feel the slow, torturous burn of poison in your body, choking you, killing you only minutes later? How would you feel if you cried out for help trusting that the people who gave you food will help you only for them to turn their backs on you, not even bothering to look at you, as if your life never really mattered? How would you feel if someone tied you to a pole and beat you mercilessly until you died or poisoned you and tied your mouth and feet to prevent you from crying out for help? Is it humane? Taking a life and not even letting them express their pain? Or ask for help?
Would you be able to trust the kind that raped you? Can’t believe what you just read right, but this is the gruesome truth, we are so sick that we don’t even spare animals. How would you feel if you had to live with 3,2 legs because some sadist decided to kill you but didn’t even bother doing it properly? What do we call all this when it happens to humans? We call it mass murder but let’s not be mistaken, this is murder too we just don’t seem to be able to accept it because then if we do accept it how will we be able to look at ourselves and sleep at nights?
The reasons the “ASHRAF UL MAKHLOOQAT” gives for this “act of goodness” are actually quite illogical and not to mention petty. They say our Prophet (PBUH) allowed the unreasonable killing of dogs and they actually use half a hadith to back their claims, the full hadith being: “Allah’s Apostle (PBUH) ordered us to kill dogs and we carried out this order so much so that we also killed the dog coming with a woman from the desert. Then Allah’s Apostle (PBUH) forbade their killing. He said: it is your duty to kill the jet-black (dog) having two spots ( on the eyes) for it is a devil.” (Sahih Muslim 3810-3813) I can’t really seem to find how this hadith supports this sick tradition of mass murder. Another funny reason we get to hear is that people die because of dog bites which only happens when there’s no vaccine. Whose fault is that? The animals’ or the government’s? Unlike humans, animals don’t hurt humans just for the fun of it, there’s usually a reason that makes them act like that though when a dog bites someone no one wonders about the reason, they already have a verdict ready in which the animal is found guilty and the punishment is usually death because who cares if the human’s stupidity led the dog to act aggressively?
No one really cares about an animal’s life and because they can’t speak for themselves and sometimes even rely on us to keep them safe we can and should kill them. We teach our children to be cruel towards these animals, to hurt them, make them feel unsafe, and then expect them to take it all instead of retaliating? Some fine vigilantes we are. Did I mention the people who kill dogs do it because all that barking disturbs their precious sleep so of course, you HAVE to take a life because they disturb your beauty sleep? Then there are ones that say the stray dogs roaming around in their posh colonies are aesthetically displeasing which is why they shoot them or call the authorities to do their dirty laundry for them. We as a society are so against co-existence that if we see a cat with her babies in our houses we’ll put them in a plastic bag and leave them at some meat shop where they ultimately die either because they can’t eat anything solid or they are killed by dogs or some other cats, the ones who do manage to survive are often roadkilled yet we still won’t stop with this barbarism.
Some say that culling is necessary to decrease their population and prevents rabies from spreading yet their population seems to be increasing every year along with the threat of rabies, ever wondered why? That is because mercilessly taking their lives is not the solution but TNVR (trap, neuter, vaccinate, release) is. A campaign on which NGOs all around Pakistan are working tirelessly but we prefer cruelty over kindness, indifference over empathy, and barbarism over humanity, but is TNVR even useful in a country where instead of humans we find monsters and sadists? What are they if not monsters that don’t even spare collared stray dogs, why do organizations like KMC and CBC keep poisoning and shooting collared dogs, how do they pose a threat? Doesn’t neutering reduce aggression and doesn’t vaccination eliminate the threat of rabies so why keep killing them? Is there any hope left for people like that moreover why do we keep supporting these monsters? What does that say about us? If TNVR was available back in the time of Holy Prophet (PBUH) what would he have chosen? The man who said that if you really have to kill an animal, do it so it doesn’t feel any pain, the man who said not to kill an animal in front of the other, the man who didn’t allow us to kill all dogs but just the vicious ones, the man who forbade the unreasonable killing of any living being, what would he have chosen? Mercilessly killing them or TNVR?
The answer I think is pretty much obvious. Pakistan is one of the only few countries that have little to no animal rights laws, where somebody’s collared pet can be shot in the name of dog culling and the guilty can get away with it, where the people who live in it are so opposed to change that it’s sick, yet they call themselves Muslims. Where do the corpses of millions of dogs that are killed go? Dumped in garbage piles, left to rot and decay over a course of weeks, sounds very healthy no? We shoot them, we poison them, we leave them to rot and then we wonder why our country’s environment is so polluted. Being a human isn’t that difficult you just need to have a heart and a few working brain cells for that, the two most significant things that sadly, most of us don’t have anymore.
(Image from here.)
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