Pigs

Adorable pig, loving life at Farm Sanctuary

Ok so I am Muslim. I also happen to find pigs adorable. Problem?

Apparently so!

I have been told by countless Muslims that finding pigs adorable is "haram" (sinful).

"Pigs are haram" is what they say. This baffles me. Eating pigs is certainly haram, no argument there! The pig itself being haram, that I have a problem with. I have found no Islamic source that says the existence of pigs is haram. Allah created pigs, he created them from the same dust and breathe as he created you and I. Try telling that to these hardline wack jobs and they nearly pass out at the thought! I also love telling them that pig flesh is the closest thing to human flesh on this planet and that you can take a pigs heart and put it in a human being and it will work just as well. At that point they are usually gasping for air, muttering a long line of curses and protective proverbs to keep my pig worship from affecting them.

I like pretty much anything that is pink. Do not even get me started on flamingos: pink + bird = stupendously awesome. 

If you can not see the sweetness of this mama having a mud bath with her babies then you are insane. Farm Sanctuary is a place for all farm animals to find respite and live out the remainder of their lives in pampered euphoria, as well they should.

Allah created pigs, he sustains pigs. Allah never said he hated or disliked pigs. Maybe, just maybe he loved them so much that the idea of us mangy humans eating them was just too much to bare, who knows... What I do know is that Allah loves and cares for all of his creation, every single bit of it.

Wilbur & Charlotte

Best friends planting some peas

Pigs are actually quite smart little buggers. I have always had an affinity for pigs. When I was a kid my grandparents had a farm in the Ozarks and on this farm we had pigs. When these pigs had babies it was like every holiday wrapped into one. I had to be locked out of the barn so the mama could have her babies. I was a 7 yr old baby pig thief & damned proud of it.  I also tend to root for the underdog and pigs always seem to get the shaft. They are forbidden to eat, Jesus cast demons into them, they get blamed for human health problems etc... It is not the pigs fault! There have been some awesome pigs in this world, real or imaginary. Wilbur from Charlotte's web was one of the first pigs I loved. Wilbur was so awesome, not just because of his cool name but because he had awesome friends and enough faith to trust a spider. Lets face it spiders can be shifty. Wilbur never let the barnyard haters get to him, he knew he was worth something. Some pig indeed...

lovin' her man

There are lots of famous pigs. Ms Piggy is someone I could see myself being BFF's with. She loves fashion almost as much as she loves herself. She fell in love with someone that society told her was unacceptable but she did not let it stop her! Piglet from Winnie the Pooh was a timid little thing but had a heart of gold. The three little pigs were victims of a bully who happned to a wolf  and he was not very nice with all the huffing and puffing but they did teach us a valuable lesson, I am not sure I know what it was though. There was Babe who wanted to be a sheepdog and did not let the haters and naysayers sway him from his dream and he became one of the best sheepdogs there ever was! No pig run down would be complete without Pumbaa from the Lion King. Pumbaa was best friends with Timon, yes best friends is what we will call it, yes, I am sure that is what they were. Pumbaa and his meerkat buddy taught us all about hakuna matata and that a life of  "no worries" was just what young Simba needed.

Bless his little heart...

There is one of my most favorite pigs that ever existed: Pig. He is part of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine & in my opinion he is the best part. He is kind of a air head and always hilarious. A lot of people can relate to Pig. He has an obnoxious roommate, Rat, who is hell bent on world domination and is arrogant beyond imagination. I can relate. Pig was kicked out of his pig association because they caught him eating a bacon sandwich. I love Pig for being utterly unapologetic about it. He loves to eat pork & it is unclear if he actually understands that he is pork.

Power hungry Napoleon

Then there is my favorite pig of all. The fearless leader: Old Major and his comrade Napoleon from Animal Farm. Old Major was a great philosopher. He had dreams and ambition, he had gusto. He had a vision that the animals of the farm could one day be free of the oppression of Jones, the human who owned the farm. Old Major died before he got to see his dream become reality. That pig had dignity and no oppressor was going to take it away from him. Napoleon picked up and led the revolution and he got drunk with power. 'Two legs bad, four legs good' slowly become 'two legs not so bad, four legs sometimes bad' and the revolution went down hill fast. He let the power over take him, but who among us could have done better. He had a lot of pressure. It is not easy to keep everyone happy and keep a farm running, specially when you do not have opposable thumbs. Of course, I do realize these are not "real" pigs but they are awesome just the same. I love pigs and I will always love pigs. Sadly I know many Muslim children who will never know any of these amazing pigs.

I babysat for a Muslim family once, good people I have known for a long time. I brought a movie with me to watch with their 5 yr old girl. I watched Charlette's Web with this little girl and she had the same reactions most kids do when they see it. She cried when Charlette died and was so proud of Wilbur. When her parents returned she told them all about it and I thought nothing of it.

I was quickly hauled outside and lectured about my bad morals and that I had damaged their daughter and made her feel sympathy for a pig. I swear this is what I was told. They were angry that their child would feel sympathy for another creature. How vile is that! They rationalized this by saying that if she felt sympathy for them she would be inclined to eat them and I had to laugh. I told them that having sympathy for an animal would actually end up preventing her from eating it, they did not agree and we are no longer friends because I am a dirty pig loving heathen. Good riddance!

The Prophet said that any one who harms any living thing, even so small as a sparrow, without just cause, will answer for it on judgment day. He also said that whoever is kind to Allah's creatures is kind to his own self.

All creatures of Allah are worthy of love and admiration. There is reward in loving what Allah loves and what he created.

The Quran also tells us that all animals form communities and societies just like we do and that they all have souls and will all be gathered to their Lord on the last day. It does not say 'all except pigs', it says all, that includes pigs and even, for some crazy reason, includes the most vile of Allah's creation: the human being.

There is beauty here.

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