A. Introduction
Animals appear in different kinds of sources in medieval Islam: Quran ḥadīth, theology (kalām), philosophy, jurisprudence and works of belles-lettres (adab). While “animal ethology” focuses on the study of animal behaviour and acts as one part of animal science,Footnote 1 “animal ethics” focuses on human-animal relationships and how humans should treat animals. Questions about the nature, status and welfare of animals have always attracted theoreticians and philosophers; however, in the last decades, these questions have become more significant due to the rise of the animal-rights movement and the rapid developments in the legal, ethical and philosophical literature that involves animals.Footnote 2
The study of animals in Islamic thought was basically shaped by the scholarly trend that relies on the Quran and ḥadīth to portray Islam as compassionate and inclusive towards animals; this trend celebrates Islamic animal ethics in maintaining animal welfare in terms of basic food sufficiency, adequate rest, safety and comfort.Footnote 3 On many occasions, scholars of this trend emphasize the moral responsibility of human beings for animals flowing from the strict belief in “Man [as] the apex of creation”.Footnote 4 While the Quran advocated human superiority over all creatures and raised Man’s status to God’s vicegerent (khalīfat Allāh) on earth, it also served those who challenged these very ideas. These people argued that the holy scripture does not always celebrate human superiority.
Some scholars combine animal ethics with Islamic theology (kalām) and philosophy, while focusing on the concept of divine justice (ʿadl).Footnote 5 Research has also been shaped by the modern debate raised over Islam’s position towards animals, whether one views Islam as having an anti-animal-rights tradition or as emphasizing the welfare of both human and non-human animals.Footnote 6 Critics of Islam argue that Islam has much in common with the anthropocentrism of Judaism and Christianity which allows for the killing of certain animals for food.Footnote 7
Sarra Tlili’s works on Islam’s attitude towards animals and animal ethics have shown that both these viewpoints have methodological shortcomings, and she concludes that a much more careful reading of Islamic scriptures and pre-modern legal works and juristic literature is needed. This kind of reading shows that “Muslims’ attitudes towards animals have deteriorated in modern times even as the premodern tradition is guilty of many imperfections, but overall, premodern Muslim scholars gave the subject utmost attention and developed a well-thought-out ethic.”Footnote 8 Tlili argues, furthermore, that some of the Quranic concepts that have been widely considered as proofs for human superiority, such as taskhīr (subjugation) and taklīf (imposition of religious obligations), do not necessarily imply the superiority of humans.Footnote 9
A literary study of animals in works of belles-lettres (adab) is also found. Al-Jāḥiẓ’s (d. 255/868) Book of Animals (Kitāb al-Ḥayawān) is the most prominent example of this literary perspective. Furthermore, Islamic culture of the Abbasid era witnessed major animal fable writing that accommodates both didactic-moral and philosophical-cosmological implications. The major examples of this kind of writing are the collection of didactic fables of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. c. 142/759), Kalīla wa-Dimna,Footnote 10 and the Animal Fable of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ) (the fourth/tenth century) where the philosophical bases of human superiority over animals derived from Islamic scriptures are deeply challenged.Footnote 11 The Ikhwān’s Fable is a philosophical allegory where animals and humans engage in a debate on the ethical and spiritual status of animals in relation to humans before the king of the jinn. Using this fascinating allegory, the Ikhwān criticizes human injustice and brutality in treating animals, and calls upon human masters to avoid causing suffering to animals. References to this allegory in scholarship have emphasized that, on many occasions of the text, animals act as subject matter rather than literary devices.Footnote 12
Explorations of early Islamic attitudes towards animals often reveal a deep engagement with spiritual themes. Among the most illuminating sources are the writings of classical Sufis, especially those from the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. It is not only that the moral and cosmological teachings developed in early Sufism might have influenced the Animal Fable and some of its philosophical insights, but also that the study of animal narratives in classical Sufism could contribute to the ongoing debate over Islam’s attitude towards human and non-human rights as well as the question of the sustainable existence of all creatures on earth. Classical Sufism, the mystical tradition of Islam that emerged in Iraq, Persia and other Islamic lands under the Abbasid rule in the late second/eighth century onwards, had an outstanding, everlasting impact on Islamic culture that is still evident today. The Sufi approach towards animals has been understudied, although a few attempts have been made in recent years to fill the lacuna. The topic has been examined through two distinctive lenses; the first is the lens of Sufi cosmology and the Sufi perception of the world of beings (including animals), and the second lens is Sufi saintly narration and its components (including the use of animals as a narrative instrument to support the exaltation of Sufi saints).Footnote 13
This article examines early Sufi narratives that reflect, on the one hand, ethical teachings about compassion towards animals, and on the other, portrayals of animals as participants in a spiritually interconnected cosmos. This early Sufi anecdotal material might be the connecting link between the two approaches towards animals cited above: the Kalīla wa-Dimna’s text that presents a literary attempt to challenge human superiority and the Ikhawān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Animal Fable in which a philosophical challenge of that idea is presented. Reconstructing the Sufi perspective on animals, including Sufi uniqueness in challenging human superiority and human exclusiveness in the spiritual world, would contribute greatly to the broader debate over Islam’s position on both human and animal rights. Insights in this domain would be crucial in challenging the general proposition of anthropocentricity in Islam.
B. Stories as a source of the early Sufi mindset
Stories and anecdotes are a pivotal source for reconstructing the intellectual character of early Sufism and some aspects of the early Sufi mindset. Sufi themes and mentality are best illustrated through the ways in which Sufis themselves chose to express their epistemological world. Sufis developed narratives to portray their heroes acting in real and imagined situations in their quest for cosmological unity and divine knowledge. Similar to popular literature and works of belles-lettres of early medieval Islam, animals had an impressive presence in early Sufi anecdotes, stories and parables. Animals of all kinds appear in Sufi narratives, primarily as secondary characters but sometimes also as main characters. While lions, dogs and birds are the most common animals presented in this early literature, a comprehensive list is much longer and includes donkeys, whales, crabs, crocodiles, bugs, camels, horses, bats, sheep, antelopes, fish, crows, scorpions, snakes, ants, elephants, worms and frogs. On many occasions, more than one type of animal appears in the same anecdote.
The following discussion elaborates on the roles of animals in early Sufi anecdotal materials in an attempt to examine the Sufi approach towards animality. Do these materials reflect an approach in which animals share with human beings their constant praise of God? From a narrative perspective, it would be significant to trace the narrative contexts in which animals appear, the features of animal characters in such anecdotes and the way these features correspond with different perspectives and rhetoric of the authors or transmitters.
Given the nature of their devotional lives, early Sufis had constant encounters with animals. Domestic animals like dogs, horses and birds frequently appear in Sufi biographical dictionaries of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. Wild animals appear in a great number of anecdotes about mystics who committed themselves to strict devotional lives spent roving in deserts and the wilderness across Muslim lands. Sufis, whether alone or in groups, travelled widely not only to perform their pilgrimages but also to prove their absolute dependence on God (the principle of tawakkul).Footnote 14
Prior to the institutionalization of Sufism and its activities in certain locations in the course of the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth centuries, devotional roving was one of the major conditions for spiritual progress. The frequent encounters of Sufis with nature and wilderness explain their intimate relationships with wild animals; they were able to listen to these animals, to talk and interact with them and to provide later authors with a large number of colourful narrations about the deep piety of these animals and their sincere partnership and shared destiny with Muslim devotees. In the following, we will turn to the Sufi sources, which are mostly biographies and textbooks, between the early third/ninth and seventh/thirteenth centuries.
C. Approaching animality in Sufi narratives: three perspectives
Early Sufi biographies and textbooks provide different kinds of narratives that involve animals and animality. I argue that the various forms of reference to animals in these Sufi sources can be viewed from three perspectives in each of which allegory plays a fundamental role: the first focuses on animals as allegories for Sufi ethics; the second relies on allegory to create different tropes and narrative structures in which animals act as literary devices to hint at human qualities. The last perspective is ontological and its major concern is animals as active devotees and partners in the cosmological unity of the universe. This is not a call for a strict paradigmatic classification. Still, it is important to pay attention to the many occasions on which more than one perspective appears side by side in the Sufi narrative. This can be illustrated by the following anecdote that appears in ʿAbd al-Malik al-Khargūshī’s (d. 407/1016) Tahdhīb al-asrār:
A Sufi said: We were a group of Sufis in Ṭarsūs,Footnote 15 and when we went to do jihād, a dog followed us. When we arrived at the place where we were supposed to begin the jihād, we came across an animal corpse. We climbed closer and sat down. The dog looked at the animal corpse and returned to the town [Ṭarsūs] where he stayed for one or two hours. Afterwards, the dog came back accompanied by twenty other dogs. This dog got close to the corpse and remained seated until the group of dogs gathered around the corpse whereupon they ate it all leaving the bones behind. They then returned to town. The first dog, however, got closer to the bones and continued to eat some of the remains and then left.Footnote 16
At first glance, the anecdote illustrates the theoretical-ethical perspective; the dog’s behaviour symbolizes one of the major principles of the early Sufi ethical system – altruism (īthār, futuwwa). The actions of the dog act as an allegory for the way Sufis themselves should act (i.e. theoretical-ethical). On the other hand, examining the anecdote as an example of the ontological perspective, which considers the dog a practitioner of Sufi altruism, could also be a plausible interpretation.
These allegories not only depict the actions of dogs in a positive light but also employ them as symbols in narratives that illustrate undesirable human traits to be eschewed. This is the case in anecdotes involving animals as allegories for the human lower soul (nafs ammāra bi-l-sūʾ; lit. the soul that commands evil) with which every believer has to struggle and defeat. Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072), the author of the famous Epistle on Sufism (al-Risāla fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf) mentions the following anecdote in the Chapter on Retreat (khalwa) and Seclusion (ʿuzla):
Someone saw a monk and asked him: “You are a monk, aren’t you?” He answered: “No, I am guarding a dog. My soul is a dog that bites people. I therefore have removed it from them, so that they will be safe from it.”Footnote 17
Another anecdote brought about by Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996) in his Qūt al-qulūb (The Nourishment of the Hearts) provides an example of the metaphoric usage of dogs eating carrion as an allegory for other unfavourable human qualities: greed and covetous seeking to possess the world:
One of the Sufis who was granted a mystical vision narrated: “I saw [in a vision] the world in the image of a dead animal’s body (jīfa). I saw Iblīs in the image of a dog who lay on that body, and I heard a voice coming from heaven saying: ‘You are one of my dogs and this dead body is of one of my creatures (anta kalb min kilābī wa-hādhihi jīfa min khalqī) and I made it yours to keep. If someone competes with you for it I will grant you power and authority over him.’”Footnote 18
Iblīs, the devil, according to the Quran and Islamic tradition, is the ultimate source of all evil and deviation, and sticks to the world of flesh like a dog who sticks to the carrion of bodies. This analogy is multilayered, drawing a parallel between the world and carrion. It establishes a comparison between Iblīs consuming carrion and dogs doing the same, and another between Iblīs, dogs and Sufis who are depicted as compliant companions of Iblīs. The connection made between Satan, the devil or the lower soul/ego, and animality (with a special focus on dogs and lions) in early Sufi literature is an outcome of the impact the zuhd tradition left on early Sufism and early Sufi doctrines. Zuhd, asceticism, or renunciation as it is sometimes translated, was a prominent movement that flourished in the first two centuries of Islam. By the end of the second/eighth century, asceticism integrated into taṣawwuf and a broad ascetic-mystical trend of Islam was found alongside this renunciatory trend. This latter trend continued to adhere to the early principles of zuhd and its austere living and thinking, and gradually merged with mystical-visionary elements or inward, intuitive experiences.Footnote 19 The connection between the devil, the lower soul and animality goes back to Plato’s Republic where Plato connects the hungry part of the soul, responsible for physical desires and pleasures, with the instincts seen in animals.Footnote 20 Galen benefitted from Plato’s insights in this regard and connected them with his own physiological conception of the lower soul and its shared tenets with animals that guarantee the survival of the human body.Footnote 21 The equivalence between people who pursue material wealth and pleasure with animal-like craving also mirrors the teachings of the early Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom (fourth century ce) in his Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew.Footnote 22 This equivalence has taken on various forms in the later works of Muslim philosophers such as Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and Ibn Sīnā (d. 427/1037).Footnote 23
Using dogs’ habit of eating carrion in both zuhd and Sufi literature is a unique subset of dog narratives that have ethical purposes. This trope, which has old roots in the Biblical world, in Syriac and Greek Christian literature as well as in ancient Arabic contexts of war poetry,Footnote 24 left its imprint on the early Islamic sources produced in the ascetic-Sufi circles of the second/eighth and early third/ninth centuries. Examples of the impact on early Islamic sources are the works of al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) and al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. c. 300/912) as well as the category of Kutub al-zuhd (Books on Renunciation) of the second/eighth century,Footnote 25 such as the Kitāb al-zuhd of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) and Kitāb al-zuhd of al-Muʿāfā ibn ʿImrān (d. c. 185/801 or 204/819). These works focused primarily on the purification process through which the human soul should pass on the way towards God. Animality in these works describes inferior behaviour that is not concomitant with the high position of Adam and his offspring who, as God’s representative (khalīfa) on earth, have the ultimate task of attaining an introspective knowledge of God. It was a convention in early zuhd literature as well as in some Sufi writings to identify the nafs as a feminine power that constantly seduces human beings. In Sufi literature, this femininity symbolizes the “human animal spirit” (al-rūḥ al-ḥayawānī al-basharī), in the words of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234).Footnote 26 In both cases, when animals are allegories for favourable or unfavourable qualities they appear as didactic instruments to teach Sufi morals.
Another fascinating example of the ethical perspective appears at the end of the chapter on love in Qushayrī’s Epistle. The anecdote refers to a male swallow (khuṭṭāf) whose behaviour illustrates how a human mystic could slide into an inappropriate way of expressing one’s overwhelming love. The anecdote is as follows:
A male swallow sought the affection of a female one under the dome of Solomon’s palace. She rejected his courtship, so he told her: “How can you reject me? If you wish, I will collapse this dome upon Solomon!” Solomon – peace be upon him – summoned him and asked: “What caused you to say such a thing?” The male swallow replied: “O prophet of God! One cannot blame the lovers for the things they say!” Solomon said: “You have spoken the truth.”Footnote 27
The inappropriate expression of love made by the male swallow is a metaphor for what is known in the early Sufi tradition as the shaṭaḥāt, the ecstatic utterances of Sufis who were unable to remain tranquil and dumbfounded when experiencing overflowing emotions of spiritual intimacy and revelations. Al-Sarrāj was the earliest author to provide a definition of shaṭaḥāt: “astonishing expression(s) describing an ecstasy that overflows [someone] because of its power”.Footnote 28 It should be noted that the mechanism for identifying such “astonishing expressions” in Sarrāj’s words, of framing them in a definition and of connecting them with Sufi figures who were known for being intoxicated and more passionate than others (like al-Ḥallāj, al-Shiblī and Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī) is by itself a direct outcome of the agendas of Sufi authors and theoreticians of the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. These works and agendas reflect the Baghdadi-Iraqi Sufi school which was broadly identified with Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd (d. 298/910) and his milieu. Al-Junayd was one of the main representatives of the school of sobriety in early Sufism. He used to praise the state of sobriety and tranquillity even under the influence of spiritual excitement motivated by samāʿ, sessions of ritual audition or any other external trigger.Footnote 29
More generally, birds are a rich source of metaphors and a significant rhetorical force in Sufi anecdotal materials. In the following discussion, I will elaborate on the peculiarities of birds with an emphasis on swallows in Sufi literature.
Swallows symbolize different themes in world cultures and traditions. Generally, these themes are: rebirth, hope, spring, children’s spirits, purity and loyalty. In addition to this, the swallow is a symbol of courage in China, of mothering care in Japan and of female beauty and love in Russia. As Elena Carter puts it: “The swallow is a pure, holy bird which, along with the dove and the lark, belongs to God’s birds.”Footnote 30 In Arabic culture, the swallow is identified as a bird that loves people’s company and so is capable of crossing long distances to gain people’s love and create intimacy (uns).Footnote 31
The swallow in the anecdote cited above is, therefore, a metaphor for the mystic whose intense passion and spiritual intoxication keep him away from the reasonable behaviour expected of ordinary people. This is a story of a passionate love that, while going beyond the boundaries of both intellect and human reason, creates the basis of a new wisdom that has a “logic” of its own. In this kind of love, paradoxes coexist: the lover’s self-abasement before his beloved and his arrogance before Solomon, the lover’s awareness of the crucial need to control his tongue and the irrational way he expresses his overpowering emotions. In Qushayrī’s text, the anecdote of the swallow provides a realistic portrayal of the state of love in early Sufism. This is a depiction of human beings rather than of idealized personalities whose supernatural powers enable them to control their speech and action.Footnote 32 The swallow anecdote symbolized Qushayrī’s apologetic agenda at a time when the Sufi movement in Iraq and Nishapur witnessed harsh criticism against representations of ecstasy and what was considered as the antinomian behaviour of some Sufi figures.Footnote 33 Integrating the swallow anecdote into his long chapter on love helps Qushayrī lay out his lenient approach towards ecstatic sayings and behaviours whose trigger is nothing but keen love.
There are also many examples of the narrative perspective in Sufi literature. In this category are all the cases in which animals play secondary roles in the narrative structure of the anecdotal materials; these roles are designed to highlight the devotional tenets of the human hero/es, the Sufi masters. To adopt Richard Foltz’s words, they are “mere caricatures of humans”.Footnote 34 The main rhetorical aim of these anecdotes is to shed light on the supernatural acts and wonder, karāmāt, performed by the Sufi masters, as well as these masters’ spiritual rank.
Another anecdote is brought about by Qushayrī in his detailed and fascinating discussion of divine love. The anecdote relates to Sumnūn ibn Ḥamza (d. 298/910–911), a prominent personality of third/ninth-century Baghdad whose passionate poetry and ecstatic statements are best known for revolving around the theology of love.Footnote 35
I heard Sumnūn as he was holding a session in the mosque and discoursing about love. A small bird approached him and began to strike the floor with its beak until blood flowed from it. After that, it expired (ḍaraba bi-minqārihi al-arḍ ḥattā sāla minhu al-dam thumma māta).Footnote 36
The bird who attended Sumnūn’s session on love in Qushayrī’s anecdote was touched by Sumnūn’s address on his theology on love in the same way the mosque’s lamps in another anecdote fell and broke as a result of listening to Sumnūn speak about love.Footnote 37 This bird anecdote undoubtedly celebrates Sumnūn’s unique impact on his audience of listeners when he spoke about love. The biographical sources portray a very charming character who was also known for his intense states of agitation and for his ecstatic statements. Sumnūn’s physical beauty, charm and eloquence captivated the attendees of his preaching sessions, as illustrated by the story about the woman who fell under his spell during his sessions.Footnote 38 Both the lamps that fell and broke and the bird that fell and died act as narrative instruments to enhance Sumnūn’s supernatural power and spiritual aura. The reader could also suggest that the bird anecdote is a celebration of the devotion and sensitivity of the bird who, like the heroes of many love stories in classical Arabic literature, die upon listening to something that reminds them of their love or of their loved ones.Footnote 39 However, the second version, which includes the lamp anecdote, strengthens the idea that the rhetorical purpose of both versions is to highlight Sumnūn as a man whose spiritual powers go far beyond the world of human beings to include the worlds of animate and inanimate beings.
The third ontological perspective, less frequent than the first two perspectives, addresses cases in which animals were portrayed as active devotional creatures themselves; with human devotees, they are dedicated to the mystical experiences of proximity and enlightenment. At times, these animals even serve as the prototypes for Sufi piety, as imagined and expressed in both Sufi textbooks and anthologies.
When animals act as active devotees in anecdotal material, they usually appear as the only active characters. Anecdotes of this kind usually revolve around the spiritual, intellectual and moral virtues of the animals themselves. While these anecdotes are few in number, they are vital to understanding some hidden aspects of Sufi thought during its early phase of development. Here animals are presented as a model of Sufi piety. The following anecdote is taken from Kitāb al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf (The Exploration of the Doctrine of the Sufis) by the fourth/tenth century author Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī (d. 380/990):
[…] I heard Aḥmad ibn Sinān narrating: I heard one of my companions say: “One day, I walked in the direction of Nīl Wāsiṭ,Footnote 40 and suddenly, I came across a white bird on the surface of a water area which was repeatedly saying: ‘Glory to God (subḥāna Allāh)’ without garnering the attention of human beings.”Footnote 41
By praising God secretly, the bird’s behaviour illustrates the principle of sincerity celebrated very often by the early Sufis of Islam. This principle became the very basis of the teachings of the Malāmatiyya group of Khurasan from the third/ninth century onwards. This was a particular trend of inward-looking religiosity that emphasized the idea that good deeds should be concealed as a means to avoid self-conceit.Footnote 42 The white bird in this anecdote acts as a non-human mystic whose praise of God is purely sincere.
While the above-mentioned anecdote about the bird who dies after listening to Sumnūn ibn Ḥamza’s talk on passionate love also illustrates a kind of spiritual-mystical sensitivity, or what could be called mystical-emotional intelligence, the rhetorical focus of the anecdote is on Sumnūn’s mystical virtues. This non-human mystical intelligence can also be found in the anecdotes about David, who is considered in Islam as one of the prophets and messengers of God, having received the divine revelation of Zabūr. In Sufi literature, David is frequently described as reciting from the Zabūr with his beautiful voice and having a strong emotional impact on his audiences of human beings, jinns, animals and birds.Footnote 43 These stories and their positive image of animals contradict the well-known conception of animality as a symbol of the lower soul or human ego (nafs) and as being the source of all evil and lustful desires in early Sufi psychology.
Animals in the ontological category appear to speak in human language and their ideas reflect genuine Sufi perspectives while creating a kind of unity of destiny with human beings. Dogs, who are very often considered ritually impure in Islamic law in the dogmatic discussions of ritual purity, ṭahāra,Footnote 44 and lions are presented as moralistic, pious creatures whose praise of God is highly sincere since, unlike the praise of their human counterparts, it is not profit-oriented. Birds, however, are not subject to this dual ambivalence but enjoy a position of esteem. The following discussion will elaborate on these three species: birds, lions and dogs.
D. Elaborating on the ontological perspective: birds as practitioners of Sufi piety
Birds play a prominent role in Sufi anecdotal material as both a narrative device to enhance human piety as well as models of Sufi piety themselves. Before elaborating on birds as pious characters I will briefly discuss the allegorical image of birds in early Sufi tradition.
This is a different narrative line in which the state of being a bird, the bird status ṭayriyya or one’s “birdness” act as a symbol for high spiritual states in which the mystic gets close to the divine presence.Footnote 45 This allegorical aspect of the appearance of birds in the Sufi tradition developed alongside the anecdotal usage of birds as narrative characters who shared Sufi ethics and piety. Birdness was a leitmotif in the ecstatic passages of Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī (d. c. 261/875).Footnote 46 On one occasion of al-Sarrāj’s work, Abū Yazīd is quoted to have narrated:
When I reached His unity, I turned into a bird whose body is made of oneness (aḥadiyya) and his wings are made of everlastingness (daymūmiyya). I kept flying in the air of (this) modality kayfiyya Footnote 47 for ten years until I reached a place with an air like the former zone [and I flew] for one million times until I reached the square of eternity (maydān al-azaliyya) where I saw the tree of oneness (shajarat al-aḥadiyya). Then he [that is, Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī] described the tree’s ground, roots, branches, and fruits. Then, he [Abū Yazīd] said: I looked and discovered that all that was nothing but an illusion (khudʿa).Footnote 48
The bird in such a visionary autobiographical passage acts not only as a symbol for the lofty spiritual state which the narrator experienced, but also as a powerful image for the intense metamorphosis that his soul experienced amid the high states of extinction and unity. The last sentence in the quotation is particularly shocking since it destroys the meaning that the reader thought he had understood. Why does the seeker who had turned into a flier suddenly conclude that everything he had seen was an illusion? In order to understand this notion, one needs to connect it with other texts of Abū Yazīd. In another fascinating long text entitled The Vision of Abū Yazīd (Ruʾyā Abī Yazīd),Footnote 49 Abū Yazīd narrates his inward experience of ascending to the heavens (miʿrāj) where he meets different kinds of angels, as well as prophets and messengers. He narrates how God offers him great parts of His kingdom. Each time Abū Yazīd ascends to a higher heaven, he rejects the offerings presented to him, repeatedly declaring before God that he seeks something beyond heavenly luxuries. This theme is repeated in the text, and at every point Abū Yazīd’s comment is: “I discovered, then, that He was testing me.” At the end of the text, the reader discovers that what Abū Yazīd was truly seeking was intimacy with God. This is the ultimate state of spiritual closeness that can only be expressed in an apophatic language, a language that approaches God in terms of what He is not rather than in terms of what He is.Footnote 50 Abū Yazīd describes this state as follows: “I reached to a place where God remained without kawn (lit. existence), bayn (lit. separation), ayn (lit. anywhere) or ḥayth (one place).”Footnote 51
This allegorical image of birds in the visionary descriptions of early Sufis turned into a well-established constituent of later discussions of the Sufi path, which was often divided into two major stages: seeking or wayfaring (sayr) – the preliminary phase of spiritual purification pursued through various austerities and techniques such as poverty, patience and fasting – and flying (ṭayr), which represents the elevated consciousness experienced in higher states of grace, such as love, unification (tawḥīd) and divine knowledge. The Epistle of Flying (Risālat al-Ṭayr) of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī and the detailed elaborations of the state of birdness (ṭayriyya) by Najm al-Dīn Dāya (d. 654/1256) are examples of this trend in the later Sufi system of thought.
This, however, was not the only way Sufis conceived of birds. There were also Sufis who believed in the birds’ self-qualification to be pious lovers. Birds appear in Sufi anecdotes much more than any other animal. They frequently appear in anecdotes illustrating the state of mystical love. Birds played a major role in the biography of the early mystic of Baghdad Sumnūn ibn Ḥamza, who was widely known for his passionate love. One anecdote tells that someone asked Sumnūn about divine love. After Sumnūn responded that he knew of no one who truly understood love, a bird suddenly fell on his head. He then admitted that if anyone possessed such knowledge, it was that bird – and no one else.Footnote 52 In this story, the bird stands out as the only other independent and actively pious being besides Sumnūn.
In other stories, birds appear alone without any human character and are presented as independent heroes of Sufi devotion and piety. According to another anecdote, a bird used to come to al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī’s (d. 253/867) place every day and al-Saqaṭī used to crumble some bread for the bird so that it would eat from his hands. One day the bird came but did not perch on his hand. Al-Saqaṭī did not understand the reason behind this until he remembered that he had just eaten meat with spices. Food with spices was considered by many Sufis as a luxury that should be preferably abandoned, and this incident led him to decide to never eat meat with spices again. As a result, the bird returned to perch on his hand and eat. I do not believe this anecdote suggests anything about vegetarianism, as its focus is clearly on spices. Interestingly, the story appears in the chapter on the miracles of Sufi masters in both Qushayrī’s Epistle and Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (Book of Glimmers).Footnote 53 Rhetorically, this location suggests the cosmological significance of the saint’s actions. The pious bird, who shared with al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī the same moralistic and spiritual world, was affected by al-Saqaṭī’s lapse into luxurious consumption and took it upon itself to guide him back to the path of sincerity. The bird’s affection and response were seen as evidence of al-Saqaṭī’s supernatural influence on the surrounding world. I would argue, however, that despite the story’s focus on human miracles, it still highlights the recurring portrayal of birds as active participants in Sufi piety. Qushayrī narrates an anecdote about a group of birds that were reduced to extreme hunger for 40 days and then flew off and returned smelling profusely of musk.Footnote 54 Another anecdote, reported by al-Khargūshī, tells of a bird that turned its gaze away out of shyness, mirroring the modesty and reverence of the early Iraqi ascetic Maʿrūf al-Kharkhī (d. 200/815) before God.Footnote 55
E. Dogs and lions
As previously noted, dogs have long held an ambivalent status in Islamic tradition. While Islamic jurisprudence often regards them as impure, the Quran’s only mention of a dog – in the story of the Companions of the Cave in Sūra 18 – is distinctly positive. In moral discourses and works of belles-lettres, dogs appear in varied roles: at times symbolizing unrestrained appetites, and at others embodying qualities such as loyalty, sincerity and dignity. Richard Foltz discusses in much detail Muslim attitudes towards dogs. He indicates that the hostility towards the canine was known among the Semitic peoples from the pre-Islamic period and is not the outcome of any Islamic teachings or attitudes.Footnote 56 More recently, Sheridan Polinsky published a revisionist study on the status of dogs in the Islamic tradition where he elaborates on earlier scholarship to explore four key dimensions: the Quran, jurisprudence, al-Dāmirī’s work of belles-lettres, The Great Life of Animals (Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā) and Sufism.Footnote 57
Works of belles-lettres reflect the ambivalent attitude towards dogs in Islamic societies. On the one hand, these works celebrate canine qualities to criticize the moral decline of Muslims, and on the other hand, they use dogs as metaphors for the ill appetites of humanity. The most outspoken collection of the positive traditions and stories about dogs is The Book of the Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes (Faḍl al-Kilāb ʿalā kathīr mimman labisa al-thiyāb) by the fourth/tenth century litterateur Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Khalaf Ibn al-Marzubān (d. 309/921). Ibn al-Marzubān sought to express his and his contemporaries’ nostalgia for the pre-Abbasid period when desert life demanded loyalty, trust and altruism.Footnote 58 Prior to Ibn al-Marzubān, it was al-Jāḥiẓ who referred to dogs as creatures that are neither completely wild nor completely domestic.Footnote 59 In Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ’s Animal Fable, the dog is criticized by other animals for its willingness to associate with humans.Footnote 60
The ambivalent approach towards dogs is also evident in the heritage of early Muslim ascetics, as previously noted. At both ends of the interpretive spectrum, dogs primarily serve as metaphors. On the one hand, a dog’s nature symbolizes the base appetites that must be overcome in the process of spiritual purification; on the other, it represents the virtues of self-humiliation, surrender and submission to God – qualities the ascetic is encouraged to cultivate and embody.
Sufi attitudes towards dogs were not only equivocal but also much more sophisticated and colourful, thereby attracting scholarly interest. Javad Nurbakhsh has dedicated a compilation to dogs in Sufi lore. By presenting a collection of stories drawn from classical Sufi literature, Nurbakhsh pays tribute to the values of humility, loyalty and gratitude which dogs share with Sufis, and the necessity of taming the wildness of dogs in the same way that Sufis look to tame their own negative qualities.Footnote 61 Dogs as Sufi saints in hagiographies from the region of Khwārazm form the basis of Devin DeWeese’s fascinating chapter on dog shrines in the Kubrawī tradition.Footnote 62
Both the ego-self and the sublime ideal of altruistic behaviour are often linked to dogs in Sufi literature. Lions, sibāʿ, and dogs are frequently mentioned in Sufi discussions of the human lower instincts of anger and lustful desire. “Each of us is a guardian of one’s ‘own dog’” (which is his ego-self) according to one saying quoted by Qushayrī.Footnote 63 The need to domesticate one’s inner “lion”, one’s attributes of anger, selfishness and aggression, is frequently emphasized by Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) in his moralistic discussions. On one occasion in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences), al-Ghazālī writes:
The dog signifies the temper of anger since the references to the predator lion and the biting dog have nothing to do with their external shapes and colours but to the meanings of the aggressiveness usually identified with lions and the ill-temperedness identified with dogs.Footnote 64
This reference supports the assumption that Sufis did not refer negatively to dogs and lions per se but rather to the symbolic images of negative human qualities universally connected to them.
There is a very famous tradition attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and common among the early renunciants (zuhhād) of the first two centuries of Islam, which states: “When the year 150 comes, raising a whelp will be preferable over raising a child.”Footnote 65 Besides works on zuhd, this tradition is cited by Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī in order to pay tribute to celibacy among Sufi novices.Footnote 66 The way this tradition references dogs is not related to any attitude towards them as animals; rather, it uses them as a means to delegitimize marriage and child-rearing in favour of pursuing a purely devotional life.Footnote 67
In addition to their widespread use as symbols of human ill-temper, lustful desires and greed, another perspective of dogs began to emerge in Sufi circles and writings. This perspective was inspired by earlier positive references to dogs in the first centuries of Islam, as we find, for instance, in an interesting statement attributed to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the Prophet’s nephew and son-in-law and the person to whom most Sufis’ lineages go back. In this statement ʿAlī teaches an important educational lesson by celebrating dogs’ moral characteristics: “Happy is the one who leads the life of a dog for the dog has ten characteristics which everyone should possess”. Among the characteristics that ʿAlī mentions are humility, having no possessions, constant hunger, loyalty to his master and full commitment to his duties.Footnote 68
Positive references to dogs and lions in Sufi lore take two distinct directions. The first is the narrative perspective, where dogs and lions play fundamental roles in supporting human piety, acting as triggers for that piety,Footnote 69 and the second refers to the ontological perspective in which dogs act as agents of Sufi piety in their own right. Yelping dogs, for instance, act as the trigger that motivates Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Nūrī (d. 295/907–8) to say “Labbayka”, a phrase usually used in praising God. This incident illustrates the shocking behaviour of certain figures, including Nūrī, in the history of early Sufism. When asked to explain his irrational behaviour, Nūrī responded that dogs, along with all inanimate beings, praise God in a way that is more sincere than that of human beings. The text preserved by Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj reads:
He [Nūrī] heard the yelping of dogs and said: “Labbayka wa-saʿdayka” [at your service and may happiness glorify you]. When asked about his statement, Nūrī answered: “[…] God says [in the Quran]: “Nothing is, that does not proclaim His praise but you do not understand their extolling” (in min shayʾ illā yusabbiḥu bi-ḥamdihi wa-lākin lā tafqahūna tasbīḥahum) [partially verse 44 of Sūra 17]. The dog and everything (al-kalb wa-kullu shayʾ) [other animals and all inanimate beings] praise God without hypocrisy or seeking social fame or any reward.Footnote 70
A similar anecdote involves a rooster instead of dogs and centres around Abū Ḥamza al-Ṣūfī (d. 269/882–883 or 289/902), one of the prominent figures engaged in discussions of shaṭaḥāt (ecstatic situations and utterances) during the third/ninth century in Baghdad. According to the anecdote, Abū Ḥamza started whooping once he heard a crowing rooster: “At your service, my Lord” (labbayka yā Sayyidī). This incident allegedly took place during Abū Ḥamza’s visit to al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī, one of the most influential scholars and theoreticians of Islamic spirituality in the pre-Ghazālī period.Footnote 71 It was said that al-Muḥāsibī became extremely nervous because of the irrational behaviour of his guest and that he, al-Muḥāsibī, took a knife and threatened to kill Abū Ḥamza if the latter did not repent. Abū Ḥamza’s response was decisive and muzzling. He told al-Muḥāsibī that someone who allowed himself to live a luxurious life, as al-Muḥāsibī did – seen as a sign of reaching the highest rank in the Sufi path, where wealth does not interfere with one’s renunciatory mindset – must understand the deeper meaning of Abū Ḥamza’s statement. In doing so, Abū Ḥamza implicitly condemns al-Muḥāsibī’s ignorance and ambivalence.Footnote 72
In both the cases of al-Nūrī and Abū Ḥamza, the dogs and the rooster serve as triggers, reminding the mystics of the following:
1. All creatures share with human beings an ontological need to praise God.
2. The voices of animals and all inanimate creatures are conceived of by early Sufis as God’s signs that constantly remind them of their uncompromising commitment to the Sufi path and of their observation of the encompassing divine existence in every atom of the cosmos.
3. Animals and all inanimate creatures, like human beings, have, in fact, no volition of their own and their acts and movements are God’s will.
Encountering lions, sitting with them and even sharing food with them during one’s roving in the desert and wilderness are themes that frequently appear in Sufi anecdotal material. It is al-Sarrāj again who narrates that Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) used to meet lions that came to visit him in a separate house or room devoted to lions:
When we arrived in Tustar [in south-western Persia] we saw on the property [that used to belong to] Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh [al-Tustarī] a room that the locals called “the room of the lions” (bayt al-sibāʿ). We asked them about it. They answered: “Lions used to come to Sahl. He would take them to this room and play host to them, feeding them meat. He then let them go […] The entire population of Tustar agreed about this, despite their considerable number and no one denied it.Footnote 73
This encounter with lions serves as a narrative instrument to enhance Sahl al-Tustarī’s supernatural virtues in committing karāmāt. It also signifies his spiritual powers as a man of high piety and widely recognized devotion.
Dogs rather than lions appear as God’s instruments to help mystics in situations of crisis and misfortune. The involvement of animals in these anecdotes illustrates the significant role of animals as pious servants. According to one anecdote, a group of desert-wandering Sufis would feel hungry with nothing to eat. One of them used to climb higher up and howl like a wolf so that dogs would hear him and start yelping. Guided by these dogs’ voices, this Sufi was able to go to an inhabited area and get food for his friends.Footnote 74
Dogs, as distinctive non-human devotees in their own right as well as agents of highly mystical ethics and morality, were the focus of some anecdotes. The abovementioned anecdote, taken from al-Khargūshī’s Tahdhīb al-asrār, illustrates a positive attitude towards dogs as pious worshippers of God and moral creatures who enjoy a great deal of altruism; al-Khargūshī felt that Sufis should learn from dogs while trying to reach the state of futuwwa, which is one of the major ethics that early Sufis developed.Footnote 75
Another interesting anecdote that appears in Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī’s (d. 597/1200) Ṣifat al-ṣafwa involves dogs from a very positive perspective. The anecdote is narrated by Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz (d. 286/899 or a few years earlier):
Abū Bakr al-Shaqqāq narrated that he heard Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā al-Kharrāz saying: “One day, I was walking in the desert when I came close to ten sheepdogs who turned towards me. When they came closer to me I kept committing murāqaba [contemplation]Footnote 76 until a white dog arrived, assumed leadership and chased away the group of dogs. He would not leave until they did. Then I turned my head to see him but I was not able to do so.Footnote 77
By the ninth/fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth centuries, this pious portrait of dogs in Sufi narration was remarkably expanded to embrace saintly dimensions by Muslim hagiographers such as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), Ḥusayn Karbalāʾī Tabrīzī known as Ibn al-Karbalāʾī (d. the late tenth/sixteenth century) and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (d. 973/1565). Jāmī, Ibn al-Karbalāʾī and other Persian biographers of Central Asia elaborated on the story of the miraculous impact of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā’s (d. 618/1221) gaze which transformed a dog into a saint.Footnote 78 The idea of the miraculous impact of a Sufi master’s gaze on dogs developed in relation to other Sufi characters. On one occasion in the biography of Yūsuf al-ʿAjamī al-Kūrānī in al-Shaʿrānī’s work, the following anecdote appears:
One day, the sheikh came out of his khalwat al-arbaʿīn,Footnote 79 and his eyes fell on a dog. As a result [of the sheikh’s gaze], the dog was sought out by other dogs as well as by people who began to ask him to fulfil their requests. When that dog died, the other dogs gathered around and mourned him. God inspired some people to bury him and dogs continued to visit his grave until they themselves passed away.Footnote 80
Rhetorically speaking, al-Shaʿrānī’s purpose in this anecdote is to celebrate the spiritual power of the sheikh’s gaze that could bring salient changes in the physical world. The impact of the sheikh’s gaze corresponds with an earlier theme in Sufi narratives according to which gazing at one’s master is expected to grant the disciple some of the master’s inward knowledge, one of the major motifs in the classical Sufi discourse of sainthood.Footnote 81 In his al-Anwār al-qudsiyya, al-Shaʿrānī relates that one effective glance of the sheikh to his disciple might be enough to uplift his disciple even to the extent of leading him along the Sufi path without the disciple’s self-discipline (mujāhada).Footnote 82
The sharp ontological transformation of the dog in Sufi hagiographies reflects the authors’ attempt to expand the Sufi master’s influence to the non-human world of animals. The dog, typically a symbol of ill-temperedness and greed, becomes a saint under the profound influence of the master’s gaze. The narrative of transformation is remarkable in that it illustrates a qualified rhetorical sophistication in referring to dogs as qualified practitioners of piety. While earlier anecdotes emphasized the ethical and altruistic qualities of dogs, the biographers mentioned above introduced a bold Sufi portrayal of dogs, depicting them not only as practitioners of Sufi morals but also as beings worthy of what could be called a semi-Sufi sainthood. That said, it should be emphasized that this motif remains an extreme and marginal element within the broader Sufi narrative concerning animals.
The Sufi anecdotes that involve dogs seek to present the Sufi path towards God as a shared goal of all animate beings in this world. A great number of those anecdotes appear in discussions of karāmāt of the Sufi masters which alludes to human centrality in the cosmological world of the Sufis.Footnote 83 However, this human centrality rests alongside a well-established image of animals as partners in a shared, harmonious mystical being. One could also suppose that parallels between Sufis and animals illustrate that Sufis, like animals, are outside normal human society and, therefore, are capable of a purer or unmediated relationship with God. In al-Sarrāj’s chapter on karāmāt, he narrates an anecdote about a Sufi who was able to listen to his talking donkey. When biting insects attacked the donkey, it lowered his head, so that his Sufi owner started beating it. This thrashing caused the donkey to say: “Go on beating me! What you are in fact doing is beating your own head.”Footnote 84 The donkey’s behaviour here expresses an elevated level of morality in resisting oppression and injustice as well as a deep belief that God’s eternal justice will not be late in coming. Though part of the general discourse of karāmāt, such an anecdote reveals the early Sufi conception of an encompassing Sufi piety that humans and non-humans are eligible to share.
Another anecdote is provided by Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. 618/1221) about Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī who:
was walking, and just then, a dog approached from the opposite direction. Abū Yazīd retired, giving the dog right of way. The Chance thought of disapproval occurred to one of the disciples: “Abū Yazīd is the ‘king of the gnostics,’ yet with all this dignity, and such a following of disciples, he makes way for a dog. How can that be?.” “Young man," Abū Yazīd replied, “this dog mutely appealed to me, ‘What shortcoming was I guilty of in the dawn of time, and what exceptional merit did you acquire, that I was clad in the skin of a dog whereas you were robed in honour as king of the gnostics?’ This was the thought that came into my head, so I made way for the dog.”Footnote 85
Parallelism between the human mystic and dogs comes through a fascinating statement attributed by ʿAṭṭār to Abū Yazīd who is said, on another occasion, to have met and conversed with a dog: “You are unclean outwardly […] I am inwardly unclean. Come, let us work together, that through our united efforts we may both become clean.”Footnote 86 This statement illustrates that each side, human and non-human, suffers shortcomings and that only unity and connectedness can guarantee spiritual salvation for both.
Sufis, sensitive to the human being’s moral decline and withdrawal from the path of God, were thereby motivated to adopt a solitary life of roving. They found refuge in nature and animals; they strove to live in unity and harmony with the universe being one of God’s ultimate marvels and manifestations of beauty. This unity and harmony would be unattainable if animals remained deprived of the ability to be pious. That is why Sufis strove to make a room in their cosmic image of the universe for animals being active worshippers of God.
Conclusion
This article sheds additional light on the broad question of Islam’s approach towards animals by exploring the dynamic and multifaceted role they play in early Sufi narratives. Far from treating animals as mere subordinate beings, early Sufi literature – from anecdotal accounts and parables to biographical dictionaries – reveals a rich tapestry in which animals serve as allegories, narrative devices and, at times, as active practitioners of piety. Such texts showcase a variety of creatures, including domestic animals like dogs, horses and birds, as well as wild beasts encountered in the deserts and wilderness. These diverse portrayals underscore the recurring theme of animals as both mirrors and partners in the mystic’s journey towards divine union.
The analysis identifies three interrelated perspectives within Sufi thought. The first is the theological-ethical approach, in which animals function as allegories for Sufi ethics and offer symbolic reflections on virtues such as humility, sincerity and love. This perspective encourages practitioners to transcend the limitations of a self-centred human ego and embrace a more inclusive, spiritually attuned existence. The second perspective is narrative in nature; here, animals – often appearing as secondary characters – serve to enrich the storytelling framework. Their roles are designed to heighten the devotional qualities of human protagonists, effectively using allegory to hint at deeper human potentials and spiritual aspirations. The third is the ontological perspective. Although less frequently encountered, this perspective portrays animals as autonomous agents in their own right. In these instances, animals not only echo human virtues but actively engage in the mystical experience, sometimes even being elevated to a semi-sainthood status, as illustrated by the transformative narratives involving dogs and lions.
Additionally, the symbolic use of birds, particularly the recurring emphasis on swallows, illustrates the potent metaphoric power of nature in Sufi thought. Birds serve as a constant reminder of freedom, beauty and the transcendence of worldly limitations, reinforcing the idea that the divine is accessible to all living beings. Through such imagery, Sufis articulate a vision of spiritual unity that blurs the boundaries between the human and the non-human, suggesting that divine love and intimacy are not the exclusive domain of humanity but a universal fortune shared by all creatures.
In sum, early Sufi narratives challenge traditional hierarchies by presenting a universal approach to piety – one in which every creature, regardless of its place in the natural order, partakes in the pursuit of divine oneness. By paying tribute to the spiritual qualification of certain animals, Sufis sought to free the mystical experience from the elitist and self-centred human ego by extending its boundaries so that it encompasses all animate beings, humans and animals altogether.
Acknowledgements
The conceptual foundation of this article originates from my presentation “Animals as Worshippers in Early Sufi Textbooks”, delivered at the International Symposium “Animals as Worshippers of God Before All: On Animal Piety in Islam”, held in Paris, 16–17 November 2022.
Open access
