Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Sheila McDonough, “Muslims of 

Canada.” In South Asian Religious Diaspora in Brit-

ain, Canada, and the United States, edited by Harold 

Coward, John R. Hinnels, and Raymond Brady Wil-

liams, 173–189 (Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 2000); Rheem A. Meshal, “Banners of Faith and 

Identities in Construct: The Hijab in Canada.” In The 

Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates, edited 

by Sajida Sultana Alvi, Hooma Hoodfar, and Sheila 

McDonough, 72–104 (Toronto: Women’s Press, 2003); 

Regula Qureshi, “Transcending Space: Recitation and 

Community among South Asian Muslims in Canada.” 

In  Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe,

edited by Barbara Metcalf, 46–64 (Berkeley: University 

of California Press, 1996); A[sma] Rashid, 1981 Census 

of Canada: The Muslim Canadians, A Profile (Ottawa: 

Statistics Canada, 1992).

cat

During his travels in s

yria

, the American Roman-

tic poet and journalist Bayard Taylor (1825–78) 

encountered an unprecedented sight: a hospital 

where cats roamed freely and were sheltered, 

cared for, and fed. This institution was funded 

by a private endowment (waqf) that supplied 

veterinary care, food, and caretakers’ wages. The 

British Orientalist and sometime denizen of Cairo 

Edward W. Lane (1801–76) described a cat garden 

that was originally endowed by the 13th-century 

ruler al-Zahir Baybars (r. 1260–77). At a time 

when European town dwellers ate cats or killed 

them by papal decree (which led to rising rat 

populations that may have hastened the spread of 

plagues), cats enjoyed life in a

rab

 cities in ways 

that signal their special relationship with Arabs 

generally and Muslims in particular.

The cat is the quintessential pet in Islam. 

According to a 

hadith

, “Love of cats is an aspect 

of faith.” Other hadiths prohibit the persecution 

and killing of cats. But it is because the cat is 

considered pure that it is welcomed in homes; a 

Muslim may eat food that cats have sampled or 

perform 

ablUtion

s with water from which they 

have drunk. Such rulings are often accompa-

nied by biographical snippets that demonstrate 

m

Uhammad

’s fondness for cats. He took care of 

the kittens that a cat was allowed to have on his 

cloak, and he cut off his sleeve rather than disturb 

a sleeping cat when he had to rise for prayers. His 

own cat was purportedly named Muizza, and he 

invented the nickname of the famous companion 

and hadith transmitter Abu Hurayra (Father of 

the Kitten) because the latter was always accom-

panied by his cat. According to legend, it was this 

cat that saved Muhammad from a snake. Until 

recently, Arab farmers also told of cats that warned 

or protected them against snakes.

Cats were guardians of food stores and gra-

naries and, consequently, important members of 

the environmental network that sustained cities. 

In the text- and paper-based cultures of Arab-Isl-

amicate cities, they protected books against mice 

and became friends to bibliophiles and scholars 

with whom they sometimes appear in paintings. 

The cat’s symbiotic relationship with people and 

(crowded) cities is reflected in the account of the 

cat’s creation in al-Damiri’s (ca. 1341–1405) Book 

of Animals: when the 

animals

 on Noah’s Ark com-

plained of mice, God caused the lion to sneeze 

and so created the first cat. Cats continue to play 

this role in modern cities, where they prowl the 

streets in pest patrols and keep impurities outside 

the home. The cat’s enemy is the lofty skyscraper,