Animals, humans and literature: Part - I

Some readers have enquired about why this writer has stopped writing on politics. Well, I will return to politics off and on. At the moment, there is too much political writing and most of it is regurgitating the same criticism of the PTI government.

We have gone through general elections this year and no matter how the PTI came to power, it should now be given some time to prove its performance. In a way, we are giving excessive political writing to readers as if nothing else exists or matters in society. Currently, there are not many writers who write on non-political matters.

Those who write non-political columns can broadly be classified – both in the English and Urdu press – into two categories. One, the preachers; and two, the defenders. The preachers mostly write about spiritual and self-development issues to show to people an easy way to material and spiritual success. The defenders keep justifying and protecting the so-called Two-Nation theory, the past mistakes of our establishment, and keep maligning our neighbours.

For this writer art, cinema, culture, history, international affairs, languages, literature, philosophy, physical and social sciences, and religion, all are important and interesting. If this column prompts the readers to look for and read some interesting stuff, its purpose is served.

One of my recent op-ed pieces, ‘A forgotten storyteller’ (Dec 17, 2018), termed Syed Rafiq Hussain (1895 – 1944) as one of the pioneering Urdu writers who dealt with animal-human interaction in literature. In response, many readers have asked me to shed some more light on this topic in literature. This piece is based on my recollections of books, stories, and novels that I have read and have in my personal library. It doesn’t claim to be an exhaustive review covering all aspects of animal-human interaction in fable or fiction. Attitudes to animals throughout the world vary greatly.

Societies have different attitudes towards animals, depending upon not only economic and social considerations but also religious preferences. These behaviours are reflected in art, culture, and literature as well. For example, generally speaking we are not a pet-loving people and the popular Muslim aversion to dogs and pigs is well known. At the same time, the Arab affinity for camels and horses are also common stereotypes. There is an overwhelming diversity of cultural norms emanating from particular normative sources. For starters, ‘normative sources’ are those that relate to a norm, especially an assumed norm, regarded as the standard of correctness in behaviour, speech, or writing.

Such sources tend to establish a norm by the prescription of rules. For most practising Muslims, the Quran has the highest instructive value and for around 80 percent Muslims, Sunni law is their primary normative source. An interesting story from the Abbasid times is cited in an excellent book, ‘Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures’ by Richard Foltz (2006). When the Caliph asks the jurist Imam Shafii, why God created such annoying creatures as flies, the scholar replies, “In my humble opinion the purpose is to show those in power their own helplessness.” This is an example of a normative source that responds to such questions.

Some normative sources posit that non-human animals have souls, even if they are not eternal. But great literature is not normative; it doesn’t try to set norms as some ideological or religious texts do. Ancient Greeks differentiated between the ‘animal soul’ and the ‘rational soul’. One of the most moving pieces about animal-human interaction I recall is from Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. In my school days when I started reading literature, my English was not good and I mostly relied on Urdu translations of world literature, which my father bought me from vendors of old books on pushcarts and sidewalks.

Two of the books were ‘Borha aur Samandar’ (‘The Old Man and the Sea’) of Ernest Hemingway translated by Shahid Hameed, and ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer translated as ‘Jahan Gard ki Wapsi’ by Salim-ur-Rahman. ‘Jahan Gard ki Wapsi’ is a marvellous translation first published in 1964. In its 17th chapter is a scene when Odysseus comes home. His son takes him for a beggar in town, and his wife requires proof of identity. Only the dog knows him: “Here lay the dog, this Argos, full of fleas. Yet even now, seeing Odysseus near, he wagged his tail and dropped both ears, but toward his master he had not strength to move. Odysseus turned aside and wiped away a tear.”

Odysseus had left his dog as a puppy, and now after more than a decade, the dog is old and feeble. Unable to move or crawl the dog recognises his master, shows his affection to him and closes his eyes for good. As a school boy, this passage moved me to tears and I still love to read it again and again. So, it is difficult to single out any one view as normative; there is a rich diversity of ideas in all cultures, including Islam. It is interesting to recall that six of the Quran’s 114 chapters are named after animals.

These are: the Cow (Surah 2), the Cattle (Surah 6), the Bee (Surah 16), the Ant (Surah 28), the Spider (Surah 29), and the Elephant (Surah 105). And the animals that are mentioned by name in the Quran include not only camels, horses, mules, and donkeys but also sheep, monkeys, dogs, pigs, snakes, worms, and mosquitoes. Even human beings are often described in Arabic texts as ‘the speaking animal’ (al-hayawan al-natiq). Some tribes had animal names, such as the Quraysh (shark), the Kalb (dog), and the Asad (lion). Some Muslims even retained a belief in metempsychosis (tanasukh).

For example, the 9th-century Iranian sceptic Rhazes (Ibne Zakariya al-Razi) was a believer in the transmigration of souls and wrote about it in his book ‘The Philosophical Way’ (‘Sirat al-falsafiya’). But perhaps Ibne Sina (Avecenna, 980 - 1037) was the first who wrote a short mystical treatise called ‘the Bird’ (‘Al-Tayr’) in which he employs the symbol of a bird in flight to represent the soul’s journey upward to find ultimate reality. There was another Imam Fakhreddin Razi who lived in the 12th century and severely criticised Ibne Sina. For details, you may find a book in Urdu by Maulana Abdus Salam Nadvi titled ‘Imam Razi’.

Thanks to my Persian teacher, Dr Jawad Hamdani, I was introduced to Farid al-din Attar’s ‘Mantiq-ut-Tayr’ also known as ‘Maqamat-tut-Tuyur’ (‘The Conference of the Birds’, 1177) that was perhaps inspired by Ibne Sina’s ‘The Bird’.

In ‘Mantiq-ut-Tayr’ the birds of the world gather to decide they need a king. One of the birds, a hoopoe (hudhud in Persian and Urdu), insists they already have a king called Simorgh, and they need to find him. He invites them to join him in the journey to locate the king but most of the birds make excuses. Those who join him start falling down when the journey gets arduous. Others raise objections and create confusion and doubts about the project and quit the journey. Finally, 30 birds reach the destination to realise they themselves are the Simorgh – Si (thirty) morgh (birds) – which they have been seeking all along.

Hudhud represents the writer, Attar, himself as the guide to other birds and offers his words of wisdom and insight. Most of the stories told by the leading hudhud are about humans told in metaphors.

To be continued

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.

Email: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk