The domestic cat is a revered animal in Islam.[1] Admired for its cleanliness as well as for being loved by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the cat is considered "the quintessential pet" by Muslims.[2]
Cats have been venerated in the Near Eastsince antiquity, a tradition adopted by Islam, albeit in a much modified form.[3] According to many hadiths, Muhammad prohibited the persecution and killing of cats.[2]
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Cat resting on a pillow next to an imam in Cairo, by John Frederick Lewis
One of Muhammad's companions was known as Abu Hurairah (literally: "Father of the Kitten") for his attachment to cats.[1] Abu Hurairah claimed that he had heard Muhammad declare that a woman went to Hell for starving a female kitten and not providing her with any water.[4] According to legend, Abu Hurairah's cat saved Muhammad from a snake.[2] In gratitude, Muhammad stroked the cat's back and forehead, thus blessing all cats with the righting reflex.
HistoryEdit
The American poet and travel author Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) was astonished when he discovered a Syrian hospital where cats roamed freely. The institution, in which domestic felines were sheltered and nourished, was funded by a waqf, along with caretakers' wages, veterinary care and cat food. Edward William Lane (1801–1876), a British Orientalist who resided in Cairo, described a cat garden originally endowed by the 13th-century Egyptian sultan Baibars, whose European contemporaries held a very different attitude towards cats, eating them or killing them under papal decrees.[2] Wilfred Thesiger, in his book The Marsh Arabs, notes that cats were allowed free entry to community buildings in villages in the Mesopotamian Marshes, and even fed, though dogs and other animals were driven out.[5]Aside from protecting granaries and food stores from pests, cats were valued by the paper-based Arab-Islamic cultures for preying on mice that destroyed books. For that reason, cats are often depicted in paintings alongside Islamic scholars and bibliophiles. The medieval Egyptian zoologist Al-Damiri(1344–1405) wrote that the first cat was created when God caused a lion to sneeze, after animals on Noah's Ark complained of mice.[2]
may Allah forgive me
