Here are two videos of mother cats carrying their kittens in their mouths to Istabul mosques for security. They are making their dens in a mosque. I believe that they are different mosques but both in Istabul. If that is so, it is a nice reflection of the Prophet Mohammad’s love for cats in the 21st century. Muezza was Muhammad’s favourite cat.
There is about 1,500 years between the videos and the life of the Prophet. His love of cats is legendary. It seems certain that the imams at these mosques are allowing the cats to make a den in the mosque because it is what the Prophet would have wanted. The presence of the cats adds to the sanctity of the mosque for me because it affords the cats equal rights to humans in that holy place. This is surely a godly thing to allow.
The belief that cats are clean – ritually clean – encourages Muslims to allow them to enter mosques. Apparently there is a belief among Muslims that cats seek out people who are praying. This may also explain the complete acceptance of the Muslims praying in the mosque of the cat coming in with her kitten.
In a third video we see a man playing with a mosque cat with a string of beads (misbaha). Once again it demonstrates that cats are accepted as part of the mosque.
I think that it is charming. If a female cat entered a Christian church with her kitten in her mouth I feel fairly sure that someone would take her outside or the cat would be dealt in some way rather than totally accepted, left alone and welcomed. I am not saying that Christianity is worse than the Islam faith in respect of animals generally but concering cats the Islam faith is the best religion. It is a shame though that what we see in the videos is not replicated in practice throughout Islamic countries such as Pakistan (95-98% of Pakistanis are Muslim) where there are many stray cats who live horrible lives.
There is an unfortunate downside to all this: dogs get a bad deal. There are prejudiced against by Muslims. There is no doubt about it. This is speciesism of the worst kind.
