Is it good to keep a cat if you are a Muslim?

X (Twitter) Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn Email

There is a question on the internet: “is it good to keep a cat in islam?”. This is a badly formed question but I believe that it means if it is a good thing for a Muslim to keep a cat.

Muslim lady and cat. Photo: Pinterest and in the public domain.

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

An article on the Islamic faith and cats.

Well, the answer is in the reality or actuality. Muslims are not great cat owners. I don’t have figures and there are no statistics but I am convinced that you will find that per population size less Muslims keep a domestic cat than many other ethnic groups. If that is correct, Muslims don’t believe it is a good thing to keep a domestic cat.

Because the Prophet Mohammad loved cats per the Koran and according to ancient stories (Hadiths) there is an encouragement within the Islamic faith to be kind to cats. But that is about it.

And I don’t believe that Muslims are any kinder to domestic cats than anyone else. In fact in Pakistan where 95-98% of the population are Muslims the feral, stray and domestic cat is, in general, poorly treated; so much for the influence of the Prophet Mohammad on the behaviour of modern day Muslims. Note: there are bound to be many Pakistanis who have loving relationships with domestic cats but in general it is not a great country to be a domestic cat.

In fact, in Pakistan the attitude towards exotic animals is pretty bad too. There are over 300 exotic animals as pets in Karachi, many are large cats. It is a very poor state of affairs because they are badly cared for.

So, what is the answer to the question: Is it good to keep a cat if you are a Muslim? It is, no. But if you are a Muslim and you’d like to own a cat, please think deeply about it and ensure that you can discharge the responsibility to an excellent standard before going ahead and adopting.

ASSOCIATED. A RANDOM SELECTION OF ARTICLES ON SIMILAR TOPICS: