Towards an Ethic of Being-With. An Islamic-Phenomenological Perspective on Human-Animal Encounters

It is hard to imagine human beings without animals: they surround them incessantly. Be it the pets in their own homes, the farm animals in the fields, the birds in the sky, or the insects in the gardens. Human beings cannot be without animals. It may therefore not be surprising that the Qurʾān, as a message addressed to human beings, also refers to animals: dozens of different animals are mentioned in the Qurʾān. Thus, we find the narration of the ant who speaks (Q 27:17–19), the hoopoe who gives advice (Q 27:20–26), and even the raven who taught Qābīl a lesson (Q 5:31). The Qurʾān is full of such narratives that break with traditional images of animals by turning them into supposed aides, giving them voices, and even portraying them as creatures capable of praise, living in communities. God Himself seems to interact with animals in the Qurʾān, even allowing them to become actors in interactions with the Prophets. But how can these narratives be understood? What added value can they offer to the question of the ethically appropriate and just treatment of animals? To answer these questions, this article intends to turn to selected Qurʾānic narratives about encounters between humans and animals by using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach. For this purpose, this text will deal with the encounters between humans and animals to explore how an ethical coexistence of human beings and animals can be conceived on the basis of being-with (-each other).