The Link Between The Cruelty of Animals and Humans

Today, many people think that they are living in a world of rights and justice, however, this thought is false due to the regular recurrence of animal abuse in today’s society. Animal abuse is caused by a person who often feels powerless, neglected, and unrecognizable, therefore, a person often sees this as a chance to be recognized by society. Animal abuse is wrong in any perspective in which it’s looked at, meaning there is no way that anyone is able to justify this wrongdoing. It’s wrong because it’s linked to human cruelty, major religions such as Islam and Christianity forbid cruelty towards animals, it is an abuse to those who cannot speak.

How far is animal abuse from human abuse? Research shows the link between the cruelty of animals and humans. Many psychological and sociological studies, such as these from The Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Northeastern University, concluded that people who are cruel to animals are five times more likely to be violent towards their fellow human beings. As for children, those who witness abusive acts are most likely to become abusers themselves. Another study done in 1983 showed that about 88% of abusive homes had animal cruelty in them. Evidence suggests that children’s abusive acts towards animals can hint neglect. Animal abuse is also seen as a “dehumanizing work” according to Bill Haw, CEO of Kansas City’s largest farms. This suggests that the abuse and cruelty towards animals can lead to a loss of human conscience, which can lead to unstable mental health conditions such as extreme depression and anxiety.

Major religions, such as Islam and Christianity, do not tolerate the abuse of animals. In Islam in particular, animal mistreating is wrong in various ways. A group of companions joined Prophet Mohamed on a trip when he left them alone for a short while. During his absence, his companions saw a bird nest with young ones in it and took them while their mother was somewhere around flopping its wings in grief. Prophet Mohammed then approached his companions and said: “Fear Allah in these beasts who cannot speak”.

Prophet Mohammed also states in a Hadith (speech) about mercy being rewarded by saying “Whoever is merciful even to a sparrow, Allah will be merciful to him on the Day of Judgment.' He also says “A good deed done to an animal is like a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as cruelty to a human being”. Islam is a religion of peace and consideration, it’s a religion of consideration because it thinks of both sides in every situation. For example, A Muslim should start by saying “Bismillah al Rahman al Raheem” before slaughtering an animal to make it halal. Its kids should also be away from it.

This evidence is relevant because it indicates that animal abuse is not only an untolerated act, but it is haram (strictly forbidden) too. Muslims have rules and guidelines from the Holy Quran, yet some people do not follow these simple rules. Can you call yourself a Muslim when you can’t follow simple restrictions by Allah?

Animal cruelty is speciesism because animals suffer much like humans, the only difference is that humans can express their grief and suffering to one another by talking with each other, animals don’t have this, they can’t talk to each other, but they do suffer. As the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham stated in the 1700s: “The question is not Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?'.

Drug testing on animals (a specific type of animal abuse) can hurt both humans and animals. It hurts animals because vast amounts of experiments fail while testing. This failure can lead to either death or permanent damages to an animal. However, it’s harmful to humans because according to procon.com, about 94% of tests that have passed on animals failed in human critical trials. A study in Archives of Toxicology suggested that “The low predictivity of animal experiments in research areas allowing direct comparisons of mouse versus human data puts strong doubt on the usefulness of animal data as key technology to predict human safety”.

Many people may argue and say that animals do not have rights in Bahrain , therefore testing drugs on them is acceptable. This statement is completely false because even if animals didn’t have rights in Bahrain, most experiments involving animals wasted the lives of animals, where a recent 2017 study shows that animal testing has many flaws, including false data interpretation. This leads to the deaths of many animals during or after the experiment, which can result in failures when it comes to clinical testing since the experiment was irrelevant for humans.

The presented evidence shows that animal abuse is wrong because it can lead to human violence, it’s opposing many major religions including Islam and Christianity, and it is a way of abusing those who can’t defend themselves. Animals are being abused in large quantities, and it needs to have an end as soon as possible.