Domination Over Animals and Self-Defense in The Surah Pilgrimage

In continuing reading surah Pilgrimage (22), two more controversial points are highlighted. First, our dominance over animals, and second, defending oneself when one is persecuted or attacked. In the first case, God says:

“Livestock have been made lawful to you, except for what has been explicitly forbidden. Shun the filth of idolatrous beliefs and practices and shun false utterances. [Dedicating animals to idols.] Devote yourselves to God and assign Him no partners, for the person who does so is like someone who has been hurled down from the skies and snatched up by the birds or flung to a distant place by the wind. All this [is ordained by God]: those who honor God’s rites show the piety of their hearts. Livestock are useful to you until the set time. Then their place of sacrifice is near the Ancient House: We appointed acts of devotion for every community, for them to celebrate God’s name over the livestock He provided for them: your God is One, so devote yourselves to Him. [Prophet], give good news to the humble whose hearts fill with awe whenever God is mentioned, who endure whatever happens to them with patience, who keep up the prayer, who give to others out of Our provision to them.” (22:30-35)

“We have made camels [The term budn can refer to either camels or cows.] part of God’s sacred rites for you. There is much good in them for you, so invoke God’s name over them as they are lined up for sacrifice, then, when they have fallen down dead, feed yourselves and those who do not ask, as well as those who do. We have subjected them to you in this way so that you may be thankful. It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches God but your piety. He has subjected them to you in this way so that you may glorify God for having guided you.” (22:35-37)

I am a vegetarian and have a strong feeling for animals and even insects and every living being in the organic world, and every living being in the inorganic world, which is not evil. Every dawn, birds sing in front of my window, I can feel their peaceful contentment and intuitive connection to the Source. As God said, “Do you not realize that everything in the heavens and earth submits [literally prostate] to God: the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, and the animals?” (22:18) However, it is obvious we have subjected animals. We have power over them, intellectually and spiritually. This is God’s gift of awareness of our existence in a unique way from animals and trees. So, in the verses above, God acknowledges this power and asks us to bring the name of God when we slaughter them for eating. This is obviously against animal factories which lack any reverence for animals. I assume in conditions that we don’t need really to eat animals to survive or feed the unfortunate and hungry, God as well would be satisfied with vegetarianism. I think the rite holds as long as the meat of sacrificed animals goes to the needy, and unless God changes it, we ought to abide with revelation’s sacrificial rites: “those who honor God’s rites show the piety of their hearts.”

In the next passage, God allows those who are persecuted or attacked to take arm:

“Give good news to those who do good: God will defend the believers; God does not love the unfaithful or the ungrateful. Those who have been attacked are permitted to take up arms because they have been wronged– God has the power to help them– those who have been driven unjustly from their homes only for saying, ‘Our Lord is God.’ If God did not repel some people by means of others, many monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God’s name is much invoked, would have been destroyed. God is sure to help those who help His cause– God is strong and mighty– those who, when We establish them in the land, keep up the prayer, pay the prescribed alms, command what is right, and forbid what is wrong: God controls the outcome of all events.” (22: 38-41)

I can’t deny this truth: “If God did not repel some people by means of others, many monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God’s name is much invoked, would have been destroyed.” God makes the logic of self-defense, not indiscriminately killing people, clear here. This is the way things happen. We might wishfully take absolute pacific stance in the world. But when it comes to the destruction of churches and monasteries, our houses and cities, if in terms of balances of power we are capable of defending ourselves, Christians, as well as Jews, and in the final analysis even Buddhists, would defend themselves.