Quran verses about animals

The bee, the ant, the birds, and the dog at the cave

The Qur'an gives animals a standing of their own. Of everything that moves on the earth and everything that flies, it says "they are communities like you" — the swifts over a roof and the ants under a paving stone described in the same terms as the people reading about them. Each has its own dwellings and its own provision.

That standing rests on how their upkeep is described. "There is no creature on earth whose provision is not upon God", and the same verse adds that he knows "its dwelling place and its place of rest". A sparrow's roost is on the record, and so is where it goes when the day is over.

Two of the most vivid animal scenes turn on being addressed and being overheard. God "inspired the bee" to take its dwellings in the mountains and the trees, and out of that instruction comes a drink "in which there is healing for people". In the valley of the ants, an ant calls to her colony, "O ants, enter your dwellings", and Sulayman, who hears her, answers with gratitude.

The dog at the cave is worth noticing for the same reason. When the sleepers are described, the animal keeping them company is written into the scene: "their dog stretched its forelegs at the threshold". It is a small detail the passage could have done without, and it stays in.

The animals people live and work alongside are given the same care. Horses, mules and donkeys are named "for you to ride and as adornment", and the herds that go out in the morning and come back at dusk earn a line about how they look: "there is beauty in them for you when you bring them home at evening". That passage then widens past everything it has just listed — "And he creates what you do not know".

What holds the whole set together is that none of it is mute. The birds overhead are described as glorifying God, and "Each knows its own prayer and glorification". Read that way, an animal is already inside a relationship the reader is being asked to notice. The verses about nature and the verses about creation take the same argument wider.

6:38 — There is no creature moving on the earth, nor any bird flying with its wings, except that they are communities like you. In the Book, we have left nothing out. Then to their Lord they will be gathered.
11:6 — There is no creature on earth whose provision is not upon God, and he knows its dwelling place and its place of rest. All of it is in a clear record.
16:6 — And there is beauty in them for you when you bring them home at evening and when you drive them out to pasture.
16:8 — And horses, mules, and donkeys for you to ride and as adornment. And he creates what you do not know.
16:68 — And your Lord inspired the bee: "Take for yourself dwellings in the mountains, in the trees, and in what they build.
16:69 — Then eat from all the fruits and travel the paths of your Lord, made smooth for you.' From their bellies comes a drink of varying colors, in which there is healing for people. In that is truly a sign for people who reflect.
18:18 — You would have thought them awake, though they were asleep, and we turned them to the right and to the left, while their dog stretched its forelegs at the threshold. Had you come upon them, you would have turned and fled, filled with terror of them.
24:41 — Do you not see that God is glorified by all who are in the heavens and the earth, and by the birds with wings outspread? Each knows its own prayer and glorification, and God knows well what they do.
27:18 — Until, when they came upon the Valley of the Ants, an ant said, "O ants, enter your dwellings, lest Sulayman and his troops crush you without noticing."
27:19 — He smiled, amused at her words, and said, "My Lord, move me to be grateful for the blessing you have given me and my parents, and to do righteous work that pleases you, and admit me by your mercy among your righteous servants."

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