O ye friends of God! Ye must not only have kind and merciful
feelings for mankind, but ye should also exercise the utmost kindness towards
every living creature. The physical sensibilities and instincts are common to
animal and man. Man is, however, negligent of this reality and imagines that
sensibility is peculiar to mankind, therefore he practices cruelty to the
animal. In reality what difference is there in physical sensations! Sensibility
is the same whether you harm man or animal: there is no difference. Nay,
rather, cruelty to the animal is more painful because man has a tongue and he
sighs, complains and groans when he receives an injury and complains to the
government and the government protects him from cruelty; but the poor animal
cannot speak, it can neither show its suffering nor is it able to appeal to the
government. If it is harmed a thousand times by man it is not able to defend
itself in words nor can it seek justice or retaliate. Therefore one must be
very considerate towards animals and show greater kindness to them than to man…
- ‘Abdu'l-Baha (Compilation: ‘Baha'i World Faith’)
