The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity: |
| Translated & adapted by Rabbi Anson Laytner& Rabbi Dan Bridge. Edited by Matthew Kaufmann Fons Vitae (49 Mockingbird Valley Dr., Louisville, KY 40207), 2005. 115 pages, paperback. $14.95. |
Caring humans around the world have been troubled at how most humans have treated animals for as long as written literature has existed. The earliest writings meant to motivate other humans to change their ways tried to make kindness toward animals a sacred duty, as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and to some extent Judaism, and is often mentioned in the literature of other religions, including many of the Hadiths of Bukhari, collecting the sayings of Mohammed.
Unfortunately, religious proscriptions failed under economic pressure. Animals were abused without recourse.
The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity is described on the back cover as “A Muslim Sufi work of 10th century Iraq, translated by a rabbi into Hebrew, rendered into Latin for a Christian king.”
It emerged from a time and place where secular law was just forming to reinforce religious teaching, in a manner that could be applied uniformly across the many cultural divisions that might exist within an empire.
The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity makes the case, through fable, that animals should be recognized as possessing rights, guaranteed by social contract, which could be enforced in secular courts.
As well as listing the many ways in which animals are abused, the fable evaluates the different relationships that wild and domestic animals have with humans, and seeks equitable ways to resolve conflicts of human and animal interests.
It was almost a millennia ahead of its time, but fortunately it has now been “translated from the popular Hebrew version by Jews into English, edited by a Christian and illustrated exquisitely by a Muslim woman from India under the patronage of a Saudi princess,” just in time to help provide the cultural foundation for the rapidly growing pro-animal movement in the Middle East and Central Asia.
Those of us from elsewhere can enjoy it too; but it will have most value to the people who recently induced Turkey to pass one of the most progressive animal protection laws in the world, founded the first humane societies in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, and sustain a humane movement in Pakistan despite virtual isolation from the international humane community.
