Richard M. Foltz, Oxford: One World, 2006. 192 pages.

The issue of the non-human animal in Islam and in Islamicate cultures is not a single question, but rather a vast number of disparate questions that ultimately require detailed attention in themselves. Given the lack of attention hitherto received by each of these specific questions, any general survey such as Foltz’s must necessarily be tentative and exploratory. The book is divided into seven chapters that deal, respectively, with references to animals in the Qur’an and the hadith literature (chapter 1), animal-related injunctions in Islamic law (chapter 2), scientific and philosophical studies (chapter 3), literary and artistic representations (chapter 4), animal rights in the contemporary era (chapter 5), Islamic vegetarianism (chapter 6), and Muslim attitudes toward dogs (chapter 7). Each chapter is further divided into several subheadings, making the book something of a collection of well categorized articles rather than a tightly bound narrative building up to a central argument.

That being the case, Animals in Islamic Tradition does seem to have, if not a thesis, then at least a slant: it is clearly concerned with championing animal rights and identifying the sources from which an Islamic emphasis on animal rights, an Islamic vegetarianism, and the like might justify themselves. Foltz claims that his book is not meant to be one-sided, and he certainly recounts Muslim justifications for meat-eating and negative attitudes toward certain animals. However, particular weight is given to Muslim proponents of animal rights and vegetarianism and to those individuals who are set up as their predecessors. People such as the vegetarian poet al-Ma`arri, the British imam and animal rights advocate Basheer Ahmad Masri, and Egyptian dog-lover Ahmed Tharwat are undoubtedly the heroes of this book.