Religion and Animals: Jainism | 467 tory, and it may be hoped that in the years to come Muslims will increasingly ask their legal scholars for rulings on wildlife preservation and other issues connected with the world’s ecosystems, which Islam states were created by God and belong to Him alone Further Reading Foltz, R C (2005) Animals in Islamic tradition and Muslim cultures Oxford: Oneworld Izzi Dien, M (2000) The environmental dimensions of Islam Cambridge: Lutterworth Masri, A.B.A (1989) Animals in Islam Petersfield, UK: The Athene Trust Pellat, C (1971) Hayawa-n In Encyclopedia of Islam (new ed.) (3, 305) Leiden: Brill Richard C Foltz RELIGION AND ANIMALS: JAINISM One of the world’s oldest religions, Jainism, is also distinguished as one of the faiths that cares the most about nonhuman animals Nonetheless, animals receive scant mention in most books on Jainism The Jains practice a religion without God that yet holds that our souls can become gods through liberation or moksa It is said that our souls accumulate karmic particles through both good and bad actions, which make good or bad things, respectively, happen to us in turn The goal is to eliminate all passions and actions that generate good and bad karma, as these literally make us too heavy to leave the realm of rebirth The soul that has escaped the cycle of rebirth ascends to a permanent resting place at the very apex of the universe The key to achieving divine liberation is to practice ahimsa, or avoiding injury to all life The positive side of this is a reverence for all life or a universal and unconditional love for all creatures Mohandas Gandhi was a Hindu, but adopted the Jains’ principle of ahimsa, becoming its most famous champion If one acts badly in a lifetime, one might be reborn as a primitive being There are simple one-sense beings with only a sense of touch, for example, plants and microscopic nagodas, which come in the form of earth bodies, water bodies, fire bodies, and wind bodies, two-sense beings which also have taste, for example, worms and leeches, three-sense beings which can also see, for example ants and moths, four-sense beings that can smell things as well, for example, bees, flies, mosquitoes, and five-sense beings that hear in addition to the other senses, for example, fish, dolphins, elephants, or any being born in a womb There are rational and nonrational five-sense beings, which include humans, gods, hellbeings, and animals, presumably those other than the ones listed with fewer senses A human can be reborn as a microbe, and a microbe can eventually be born human, ascending the Jains’ evolutionary scale Inflicting injury on these creatures is wrong because of the suffering caused, and also because it produces passions in the killer leading to karma and rebirth The Jains condemn all animal sacrifices They build animal shelters, and never hunt or fish They avoid any professions causing harm to animals A Jain named Acarya Hemancandra once convinced King Kumrapala to forbid animal slaughter during the nine-day Paryusan festival in India During that time, ordinary householders are expected to conform in part to the strictures of the Jain monks Farming, which injures insects, is permitted because the harm is unintentional, but Jain monks beg with a bowl so that crumbs will not attract insects that would