Food for thought

 

Food for thought – Should humans stop consuming meat

 

Now let us discuss a bit about our food as well.  Whatever living things Almighty Allah has created, He has created their sustenance and food also and has caused them to incline towards their natural food, so that they acquire and consume it.  This in turn will save their lives.  As plants also are a kind of living thing, they are inclined towards their natural sustenance which they absorb from the ground and create their own food.  If they don’t get it, they will die.  We see in droughts that thousands of trees dry up, the reason being the lack of water.

 

Like plants, sustenance for animals has also been created and they have been made to be inclined towards it.  Some of them find it in the earth itself like insects and some of them eat other animals.  We know that this is their natural food by their desire and search for it.  For e.g. the carnivores, even though they live in the midst of greenery, but they are not at all interested in eating grass or the like.  It is as if they don’t know at all that plants and leaves are also something worth eating.  When they feel hungry, they set out to hunt other animals.  Similarly the herbivores like deer, etc. even though other animals are around them they will never eat any of them.  If meat and grass are placed before a goat, it will never be attracted to the meat as opposed to the carnivores.  Thus, the desire and inclination of these animals shows us their natural food.

 

We see that the way humans are inclined to green food, they are also inclined to meats as well.  For this reason, hunting has been a pastime of all people in all countries and regions.  If chapatti, dal and kebabs are placed before a person, that person will definitely eat the chapatti with kebabs – provided that person is not a avowed vegetarian.  This shows us that the natural food of humans is both, vegetables and meats.  This is the reason why we have incisors (the sharp pointed teeth) as well which the carnivores have.

 

Almighty Allah has also made the arrangement that the animals which we eat, cattle and goats are highly abundant.  Just think.  Dogs and cats are also species of animals and goats are also a separate species.  The former have 6, 7 offspring in each litter.  The latter have 1 or 2 only.  Also, millions of them are slaughtered each day.  They also suffer from epidemics and the like, but it never happens that they become short in supply.  On the other hand, even though dogs and cats have many offspring, they aren’t as abundant as goats, even though no human being or animal eats them.  Even after these clear signs, if someone still believes that meat isn’t the natural food of human beings, it is simply stupid obstinacy.

 

Some have estimated that so many thousands of people are fed with the produce of these animals and if one of them is slaughtered, then all of them will be deprived of their food and provisions.

 

This might be true on the bases of these estimations, but the estimators have not failed to consider that running the world is the task of the Lord Almighty.  He can surely create everything as per need.  It is clearly seen that the number of clothes required by the residents of India is provided by the cloth manufacturers.  Thus, the way various kinds of clothes are provided, all other articles of life are also provided in the same manner.  What kind of Lord Almighty is it who does not fulfill the necessities of the creation!

 

If slaughtering these animals were against the will and intent of Almighty Allah, He would have simply stopped their creation.  If any king gives his servant, etc. a goat, etc. and that servant slaughters it, will he do so again?  If the king keeps giving animals to the servant and the servant keeps slaughtering them, will the king keep giving animals simply for slaughter?  On the contrary, we see that the more we slaughter these animals, the more abundant they become.  Can any intelligent person still not understand that consuming them is the intent of the Lord Almighty?

 

[Excerpted from Maqasid Ul Islam, Vol. 7]