The Non-Human World

The image of the king as mighty hunter is an ancient Near Eastern symbol of legitimate kingship. Central to this ideology is the vision of hunting as a form of sanctioned violence that indicated a ruler's fitness to rule.

Hunting was a key activity for Muslim elites. It was considered vital training for warfare, and hunting expeditions were an opportunity for social networks to be developed and maintained. It was also an arena in which future leaders were tested and could display their mettle and fitness to lead. Usama ibn Munqidh, for example, concluded his Book of Contemplation with an extended section of observations, memories and anecdotes about hunting with raptors and hounds, and the chase on horseback.1⁵

Hunting Poetry

From the eighth to the tenth century, poetry devoted to all aspects of the hunt enjoyed great popularity and an impressive array of hunters was described. We encounter falcons, sakers, peregrines and merlins; hawks, primarily goshawks but also the smaller male tiercels, and sparrow-hawks; eagles; saluki sighthounds; cheetahs; and horses for hunting. Among the animals hunted we hear of gazelles, oryx, onagers, partridges, teal, mallard and ibis. In view of the regal ideology of the hunt, it is hardly surprising that one of the major hunting poets was Abd Allah Ibn al-Mu‘tazz (d. 908), a high­born Abbasid who was to rule as caliph for a day and a night.

Of the 300 or so poems that have survived, the majority follow a simple pattern. The departure of the hunting expedition is described, and the terrain and location are noted. There then follows a description of the hunter and the prey, usually culminating in the climax: the kill, often in double figures, which, even allowing for some poetic licence and braggadocio, is a large number for one day's hunt.

Some of this poetry tells of hunting for survival. This is especially true of the poems devoted to the saluki, as the raptors (and cheetahs) were distinctly elite possessions and could probably only be afforded by the super-rich. But most poems describe expeditions conducted solely for the purpose of inflict­ing death on non-human animals. Even when we allow for the maintenance of social networks these occasions enabled, and for the martial skills required by the demands of the hunt, these poems are essentially hymns to death. The poet boasts of how he unleashes the primal power of the raptor or other hunter, whose skill and training are emblematic of his own prowess. Thus he inflicts death on unsuspecting animals. In other words, the poetry celebrates man's (temporary) control of the agency of Fate, the thrill ofbecoming death the destroyer.

The Brethren of Purity

Man's arrogance in how he views his role in the natural world, and his arrogation to himself of the violence of death, are central to a text that purports to describe a debate that took place between non-humans and man at the court of the king of the Jinn.

The text was produced by a coterie who identified themselves as the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa'), a group of philosophically minded thinkers who explored the secrets of nature and God's creation in each other's company. These enigmatic writers composed, probably towards the end of the ninth and in the first half of the tenth century, an encyclopaedia of fifty-two epistles, in which all learning, wisdom and bodily regimen would be set forth. So committed were they to rejecting their physical selves, so keen was their desire to efface their corporeal individualism and to annihilate personal identity, that, for all the popularity their writings enjoyed in the Muslim world, we do not know their identities for certain or even precisely when the epistles were written.

Epistle 22 is devoted to zoology: On the Classes of Animals, their Wondrous Physiques and Unusual Behaviour.^[1133] But this is not a scientific exposition of animal taxonomy or ecology.

The Epistle describes how Biwarasp and his people live in paradisiac bliss until a ship carrying merchants reaches their shores. The humans from the ship settle and build towns in this paradise regained. They impose their will on the animals, beasts and cattle which, prior to man's arrival, also inhabited the island in a state of natural splendour and harmony. In other words, humans are caught in a cycle of repression and unthinking hostility to the animal kingdom. This time, however, the animals send a delegation to Biwarasp and protest about their treatment at the hands of the humans who deem the animals their runaway slaves.

Biwarasp, a wise and just king, invites seventy humans to come to his court to defend their position against the plaint of the animals. A long and brilliant debate ensues, in which a dazzling array of positions are presented. In the end the Brethren give a surprise victory to the humans, but only just.

Please realise that these men who are the friends of God, the purest and best of all of His creation, behave honourably and pleasingly, with deeds that are pious, learning that is multifarious, insight deific, character angelic, lifestyles just and beatific, behaviour wondrously majestic.

The crux of human superiority is ultimately ineffable:

No one can describe their essential attributes adequately, and tongues grow weary when eloquent speakers try to list them. Over the ages many may have spoken of them in public gatherings, long homilies may have been devoted to the explanation of their exemplary lives and goodly ethos, but still their true nature has not yet been comprehended.^[1134]

Man is victorious, not because he is the talking animal, or superior to nature or to the eloquent representatives of the animal kingdom - quite the oppo­site, he is bested at every turn by the plaintiffs from the animal kingdom. Man is victorious because he has the ability to appreciate that God's universe is not anthropocentric, but is theocentric. Man has sadly convinced himself that God's gift of choice is a warrant for his vision of creation as anthropocentric. Thus his violence towards the non-human world is an unintended conse­quence of this divine gift - it is a perversion of choice. But through emulating the example set by the Friends of God, man has the potential to abandon his violence towards the non-human world, to reject what has made him primarily human in his own eyes in favour of that which makes him essentially human.