Animal's Right in Islamic Law

This is footnote I read from an article which I distributed to my students taking course IUEL4307 Fatwa and Islamic Law as their reading materials and quiz questions. The article written by Vardit Rispler-Chaim, entitled "Between Islamic Law and Science: Contemporary Muftis and Muslim Ethicists on Embryo and Stem Cells Research", published in Comparative Islamic Studies, volume 2.1 (2006) pp.27-50. The article deals with Islamic ethical and moral standards and rules with regards to the use of embryo and stem cell in research and medicine. The author concludes that Islamic ethics and rules permit the use embryo and stem cell (especially on the permissibility of legal abortion of the embryo) in research with certain restriction namely to protect the sanctity of live where in according to the Quran after the ensoulment of the embryo after 120 days of gestation. The quotation that I want to reproduce here is concerning of animal experimentation in scientific research whereby the author rightly pointed out that little has been written on the subject of animal rights in Islam.

"On Islamic attitudes to experiments on animals see Abul Fadl Mohsin Ebrahim,  Islamic Guidelines on Animal Experimentation (Qualbert, S.A.: Islamic Medical Association of South Africa, 1992. Ebrahim claims that classical Islamic sources speak of animals in general, not of experiments on animals. According to Ebrahim, alleviating animals’ pain, and verifying that the experiment is indeed necessary and has the potential to save human life are among the most important considerations in assessing the permissibility of any such experiment. In a recent book by Richard C. Foltz, Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures(Oxford: Oneworld, 2006), the author claims that Muslim jurists today, when pronouncing their opinions on “animal rights,” still make use of Qur’an and Hadith citations, no more, or at best circulate a treatise published a century ago by the head jurist of Al-Azhar seminary and titled “Treatment of Animals in Islamic Law” [Al-Rifq bil-Hayawan fi al-Shari‘a al-Islamiyya] (43–44). The few exceptions, represented by the Indian B. A. Masri (1914–1993) and the Turkish Sufi master Said Nursi (1877–1960), who devotedly advocated animals rights, only prove, according to Foltz, that the subject has not been given enough thought by Muslim jurists so far (Chapter 5)" at p.43.

The above paper cutting is probably a way too much.