Wohlleben’s “The Inner Life of Animals”
Animal research and examples validate Quranic Verses
I just finished reading Peter Wohlleben’s fascinating and beautifully written book The Inner Life of Animals. It amazes me how well it ties to different Quranic verses — right from the book’s beginning. Please note that I read the ebook version, so I will just be able to reference chapter numbers for the book. While I personally use Dr. Rashad Khalifa’s translation of the Quran — I find it to be the clearest and the first one done by a native Arabic speaker — you can check several translations using the Quran Browser for the verses I give.
In Wohlleben’s Chapter 1 he describes the selfless love of mother squirrels with a very touching example. Though I really encourage you to read this whole book and so will not try to give detailed examples, this one so touched me that I will briefly share it. Wohlleben describes watching a mother squirrel move her babies to a new home. This little mother carried each baby, one at a time, on the her back with its little arms around her neck, almost choking her. She could only get so far before she would collapse onto her side where she would catch her breath and then she would start out again. She repeated this process for each of six babies. This truly shows material devotion, just like that which God describes in the Quran in 46:15.
Chapter 4 of this book provides lots of evidence that animals process events and have emotions. Just like the ant in 27:18–19 and Solomon’s hoopoe in the same Quranic sura (a sura is a chapter).
The next chapter describes and gives examples of animals’ intelligence — using the pig family as an example. Again Solomon’s hoopoe comes to mind when he recognizes that the Queen of Sheba should be worshipping God instead of the sun in verses 27:23–24.
In Chapter 6 Wohlleben describes gratitude demonstrated by animals — like the wild crows who began leaving some of their shiny treasures in appreciation of the food Gabi, a young Seattle girl, fed them every day. And of course the Quran gives several verses on gratitude and appreciation like 14:7 and 30:50.
Birds who intentionally deceive their companions provide another interesting example that ties to Quranic verses. This lends credence to the story of the hoopoe and Solomon in 27:20–22. Solomon clearly suspected the bird of something for a good reason — probably related to a past problem.
In his Chapter 7 on deception Wohlleben describes how some birds called Great Tits will give an alarm call to disperse the flock if the caller finds something especially tasty to eat. Then the liar bird can eat all of the treat without sharing. Of course the Quran indicates we should be truthful in several verses, like 2:17 for example.
Are you aware that ravens have names and use each other’s names? Wohlleben reports in his Chapter 18 that ravens announce themselves, each with their own consistent call, and those ravens who know them use the same calls to address them.
Though these interesting facts do not directly link to Quranic verses, 33:5 and 49:11 demonstrate the importance of human names.
In Wohlleben’s Chapter 22 on altruism in animals he talks of birds, again writing about Great Tits who demonstrate this trait. The first bird who notices a predator will call the alarm, though it draws attention to itself and so puts itself in great danger.
In spite of the species difference, this example reminds me of the ant who warned her sister ants about Solomon and his army in 27:18–19. (Note also the significance of the ant’s gender. How would people 1400 years ago know that the vast majority of ants, like bees, are females? In fact how do we know the sex of ants today, I wonder?)
Now one might say that a bird’s complexity compared to an ant invalidates this example. However Wohlleben also gives the example of bacteria which have a resistance to antibiotics that release a chemical alarm which warns non-resistant bacteria of the presence of antibiotics. The bacteria at risk immediately gather their defenses. To me this example more than balances that of the bird versus the ant.
In his Chapter 32 Wohlleben describes the social hierarchy among rabbits. In many ways it surprisingly resembles that among humans. The strong parallel between the two species in individual relative life expectancy surprises even more. Low ranking individuals have a much shorter life expectancy in both species. These facts match well with the Quran’s verse 6:38 about animal communities.
In his Chapter 33 entitled “Good and Evil”, Wohlleben describes the essential annihilation of one of his colonies of bees by a raiding colony which then stole all of their honey — rather like a merciless human army’s total destruction of another people.
Interestingly, their behavior, though natural, went totally against the Quranic injunctions against killing fellow believers — with all animals shown as believers in 22:18. It also ignored Quran’s call for mercy in similar human raids, shown in such verses as 4:94 and 26:124 and130.
The next chapter, number 34, of this amazing book discusses sleep. In it Wohlleben makes the following almost incredible statement: “Most life forms (even trees) need to sleep….”. He then describes the sleeping and probable dreaming of an amazing variety animals, including tiny fruit flies.
And of course Quran mentions sleep and dreams in several verses. Verses like 7:4, 25:47, 8:43 and 12:5–6 to name a few.
Wohlleben’s Chapter 35 gives us accounts of animals with what we call ESP abilities similar to those given to Joseph and described in Quran’s Sura 12. These abilities range from predicting major volcanic activity by goats to migrating cranes providing indications of the general weather temperatures in store for an area.
A final example of this book matching Quranic information appears in the author’s Chapter 41 which examines whether or not animals have souls. Wohlleben gives a beautiful evolutionary argument that they do, in spite of the fact he writes that his intellect prevents him from accepting this belief… or so he thinks.
To me this chapter ties to two different Quranic concepts. The first, that the souls of animals indeed return to God as 81:5 tells us.
It also demonstrates to me the Quranic concept that we do not always know our own inner most conviction as shown by many verses like 5:73 (where some say Trinity but actually do believe in God with a similar understanding as that of the Quran) and 6:27–28 (where disbelievers think they would behave differently if given another chance at life when they are resurrected, but actually would not change). Though he denies it, I am fairly sure that in Wohlleben’s innermost being he does believe in the Paradise he beautifully describes where the souls of animals and humans intermingle.
All in all I truly enjoyed this book and learned a great deal more than I’ve mentioned here. I hope you will take a look at it, God willing.
Thank you for reading this and Peace be with you.
