Cosmic and Animal Piety in Islam

Walid Ghali is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at AKU-ISMC and specialist in Arabic manuscripts tradition. He also leads the Aga Khan Library in the United Kingdom. He received his PhD in 2012 from Cairo University, Faculty of Arts in Arabic manuscripts traditions. His main research areas focus on Sufism and the Arabic manuscripts tradition. He is currently working on a research project about the Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh (1905) through newly discovered documents. Guillaume de Vaulx is presently coordinator of the Inistra (Institute of Islamic Studies – Strasbourg). He received his PhD in 2017 from Sorbonne University in Arabic Philosophy and presented a thesis on the Epistles of the Brethren in Purity (Iḫwān al-ṣafā). His main research areas focus on the philosophy and theology of the 9th and 10th century (3rd and 4th century of Islam) and the history of Arabic zoology. Asmaa El Maaroufi is Junior Professor of Islamic Philosophy at the Centre for Islamic Theology of Muenster University. She earned her doctorate in the field of Islamic theology with a dissertation on “The Ethics of Being-with. Principles of Animal Ethics in Islamic Theology”. Her current research focuses on the possibilities and opportunities of Islamic philosophical ethics, yet also encompasses practical issues of ethics, such as medical, environmental, and animal ethics. Nicolas Payen is Research and Teaching Assistant in Arabic Studies at ENS de Lyon. From 2020 to 2023, Nicolas Payen served as a doctoral candidate within the ERC-funded project entitled “Animals in the Philosophy of the Islamic World,” under the guidance of Prof. Peter Adamson (LMU Munich). Payen’s doctoral dissertation centers on the exploration of the concept of the animal and the evolution of zoography during the early stages of Islamic civilization.

Animal and Cosmic Piety in Islam’s study of this field spans Islamic scholarship: from canonical texts (Qur’an, Hadith and al-Jahiz’s Book of Animals) to Sufi heritage, as well as debates on the religious status of animals in Islam. The idea that animals are considered as worshippers of God in Islamic tradition has not been sufficiently taken into account by scholars of Islamic sciences and I welcome such an important contribution to a hitherto unattended field of research.

• List of the Qur'anic verses related to cosmic worshipList of IllustrationsNote on TransliterationNote on ContributorsIntroductionPart I: Cosmic Worship1. Cosmic Worship in the Qur’an: The Genealogy of Some Verses and the Foundation of its Rationale (Guillaume de Vaulx d’Arcy)2. When the Cosmos Worships God: What Grammar Tells Us about Qur’anic Other-Than-Human Persons (Melanie Hanitsch)3. The Testament of Adam: The Syriac Origins of a Hadith on the Prayers of Creatures (Nicolas Payen)4. Creatures' Sensitivity and Animal Piety in the Hadith Literature (Imran Khan)5. The Natural World as a Medium of Otherworldly Contemplation and Animals as Figures of Piety in Ibn Barraǧān of Seville (d. 536/1141) (Florence Ollivry)6. Animal Piety, Angelic Piety and Human Impiety (Pierre Lory)Part II: Animal Worship7. Animals in the Qur'an: Symbols, Representations and Models of Piety (Geneviève Gobillot)8. Animal Devotion in Medieval Arabic Zoography. A Reading of al-Ǧāḥiẓ’s Book of Animals (Nicolas Payen)9. Can Animals be Called Muslims? Archaeology of the Statement: 'We Animals,Are Monotheists, Muslims and Believers' (Epistles of the Brethren in Purity) (Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy)10. The Role of Animals and Saints in the Tawba of the Sleeping Man from the Kitāb al-Tawwābīn of Ibn Qudāma al-Maqdisī (Hala Abdel Meguid)11. Animals my Masters, according to Ibn ʿArabī (Denis Gril)12. On Cats and Piety. Presentation and Translation of al-Qārī’s Risālat al-Birra fī ḥubb al-hirra (Jens Ole Schmitt)13. Living the Life of a Dog. Cynicism in the Sufi Milieu (Walid Ghali)ConclusionIndex