The merchant asked: ‘What gift may I purchase for you, my pretty pet, and carry back for your pleasure and delight, all the way from India?’

The parrot spoke straightaway, as though he knew he would be asked and so had prepared an answer: ‘I will not ask that you bring me back any gift, but I would ask a favour of you, a task to perform for me in India.’

‘Ask, my pretty pet,’ said the merchant, very curious, ‘and if it is in my power to do what you ask, I will do it, God willing.’

‘Well, then,’ said the bird, ‘when you reach India and you see there many parrots like myself, address to them this speech. Say:

“So-and-So Parrot sends you his greetings. He longs to be with you, but he cannot be. He is, by the decree of Heaven, a prisoner of the good merchant who brings you this message, a slave in a cage, locked up.,,

Then convey to those parrots from me. “So-and-So Parrot begs you to remember him. Remember him, imprisoned in his cage, when you fly about freely in gardens of fragrant roses. Remember him, alone and without the company of his fellows, while you go about with one another, cheerful and jolly.”

Add also this plea to your speech, since the one who will understand it may be listening. Say: “What! Have you forgotten your friend so soon, that you can fly about happily in the company of others? It may be that I was at fault in my service of you, and you are punishing me by forgetting me in this way. Is that as it should be? Is it right to answer a wrong with a wrong? Would it not be better to answer a wrong with a right?

“And yet, because it is you, still you, who have turned away from me, your turning away is dear to me. It arouses my love the more. Even your anger, your revenge on me, is dearer to me than my own life. Your anger is fire, and it burns me with love. If that is the affect of your fire, how must your light be? If I ever escape this cage, I swear I shall make straight for your rose-garden. There, I shall sing songs of desire like the nightingale. The nightingale’s songs gather the thorns as well as the roses, the bitter as well as the sweet, in the same joyful embrace. In the songs of the nightingale, love surpasses the pleasures and pains of love, and is entirely and purely itself.”

The merchant listened to every word and promised to deliver his pet’s complaint as best he could.

Towards the end of his journeying in India, he came across a rose-garden in which were a company of parrots like his own pet bird. To them, according to his promise, he faithfully recounted the parrot’s words. One of the parrots who had been listening began to tremble and shake, then fell from its perch in the rose-tree, and lay on the ground, dead. The merchant was deeply upset. He said: ‘I have been the cause of that poor creature’s death!’ and he regretted that he had kept his promise.

On returning home, the good merchant gave to all the servants in his household the gifts that they had asked for. To the parrot, he said nothing. But the parrot demanded of him: ‘What of me? Did you not do what I asked? If you did, tell me what you saw and heard.’

‘I did do it,’ said the merchant, ‘and how deeply I regret that I did. I wish I had kept silent and not conveyed your words.’

‘Why do you repent of keeping a promise and fulfilling a trust?’ asked the parrot. ‘What has caused you to be so remorseful and upset?’

‘I conveyed your complaints to the parrots where I found them, and one was so touched by your pain that she trembled and dropped down dead.’

As soon as he heard this, the merchant’s parrot also began to tremble, then he seemed to lose balance, and fell onto the floor of his cage, cold and senseless.

The merchant was now so struck with grief and despair, he began to tear his hair and clothes. ‘My dear, sweet companion!’ he cried, ‘My singer of sweet songs! Keeper of my secrets! Ah, what shall I do without you? How shall I live without you?’ Then, in his great sadness, not knowing what else to do, the merchant took the corpse (as he thought) of his beloved pet out of the cage and laid it gently on the palm of his hand.

Suddenly, the parrot awoke and flew, through the open window, to the safety of the high branch of a tree in the garden. The merchant was relieved to see his pet well. He looked up into the tree at the bird and said:

‘Dear friend, explain to me the meaning of what that Indian parrot did, which enabled you to devise this trick to escape from your cage.’

‘She gave me excellent advice’, answered the parrot from the tree. ‘By her dying, she conveyed this advice to me: ‘Your own fine voice is the cause of your being in a cage. You are held in that way so that you may entertain people with your singing and your speech. Their praise and the flattering love of your master are the walls of your cage. Renounce your cage-renounce your voice and your master’s affection. Become dead as I am dead, and find freedom.’

‘Go in peace under the protection of God!’ said the merchant. ‘You have shown me the way to a far country to which we must all go, sooner or later. That is the great journey and I must prepare for it.

In April 1989, Kelly Lynch, an eleven year-old girl, out one morning to visit her friend in Dunoon, West Scotland, was attacked by two Rottweilers which two girls had decided to take for a walk along the shore. Kelly was so ferociously attacked and her injuries so serious that she died very soon afterwards. In early June, this time in England, a Rotweiler type of dog attacked four people. This particular breed has not suddenly become dangerously aggressive beasts However, perhaps as a result of such incidents, the image of them in the public mind has changed dramatically.

The fact is that attacks on people by pet dogs are not rare, nor are they a new phenomenon. However, many people in Western societies, unable to find the true love the hoped for from other human beings and who do not understand true love, have become so very attached to dogs, and dogs have become so much a part of the pattern of social life, that nobody wants to see their aggressive and dangerous side. Peter Barchlet, an American specialist and consultant on animal behaviour, states that the most typical complaint of those who come to him for help relates to the aggressiveness of their pet dogs. However, it is something of a consolation that, at least, we know (more or less) the reasons for this aggressiveness.

One of these is the dog’s natural drive to defend vigorously whatever it thinks belongs to it or use of which it enjoys. A good example is the incident which happened in June 1989 in London. A fourteen-month old baby put its hand into the dog’s bowl. The dog, instinctively protective of its food, attacked the baby, causing serious injuries to the baby’s head and ears. In a similar incident a ten-year old boy approached the family’s own dog to find out what the dog had caught but the dog became tense and angry, brought the boy down to the ground and bit him.

The popular wisdom about attacks by dogs, that they usually happen outside the home – in parks or streets or dark alleyways – is far from the truth. In fact, a quarter of the victims of such attacks are family members and take place inside the pet-owners’ own homes. In general, 65-95% of attacks take place inside or near the home. Attacks by unaccompanied or stray dogs account for only 10% of incidents.

The second reason for dogs becoming aggressive is their suffering, or fear of suffering and ill-treatment. Under threat (whether real or so perceived by the animal), a dog is by nature tense and violent. For instance a little child playfully throwing toys at a dog may suddenly be subject to a cruel aggression. A one-year old did no more than throw a roll of paper at the family pet, but was nevertheless attacked and injured.

Another factor provoking aggressive behaviour in dogs is their need or desire to dominate over a member of the family whom it sees almost as a rival. An important reason why dogs can live amidst human beings is that they appear to regard themselves as full members of the family. That is, the way the dogs see themselves in the family is very different from the way the people see them. By natural instinct, therefore, in the absence of authority in the house, the dog tries to assert and establish its authority.

Finally, dogs can also be provoked to aggression if a situation occurs that arouses their hunting instinct. Actions normally perceived as innocent by people may not be perceived in the same way by dogs. In May 1989, James Walker, a five-year old boy who happened to be cycling by was attacked by three Rottweilers, is a good example of this. Evidently, the boy’s riding past them excited the dogs’ instinct to chase and bring down.

An incident in France on 8th December 1989 is particularly interesting for the manner in which it was presented on radio news. It illustrates very well how far this social sickness has gone in the West: A sixty-five-year year old woman was savaged. The sight when her neighbours found her body upon entering the house three weeks later was gruesome. However, in order not to frighten French people, more than 65% of whom might be presumed to be feeding their own pet dog in their homes, claimed that the cause of the woman’s death was unknown, that there was no certain explanation for why the dogs attacked as they did. However, the explanation is not at all difficult to find – it should be admitted and warning duly taken.

Many more such examples could be cited. A sturbing aspect of them is the deep scars left on the minds of children and other members of the family. Seeking a remedy this problem, which is worsening and becoming more threatening every day, the Western societies offer only piecemeal advice, a list of precautionary Do’s and Don’ts. But in fact, it is impossible for this unnatural tradition not to hurt social structures and relationships. Who can be certain how an infant, at its most impressionable age, will be affected in later years by the trauma of being attacked by the family pet, one supposed to be reliable like a friend?

Of course, it would be most unjust to lay the blame on dogs for following their instincts of being dogs. What is necessary is that human beings should relearn how to give priority to human love for other human beings, and not divert the need to give and receive affection into artificial and unsatisfactory channels. In spite of the danger and harm that so often results, why do so many people in Western societies display love for an animal which they withhold from their neighbours, their relatives, in some cases even from their children? It is obvious that they, too, are looking for the true ethos of loving kindness. They may find it in the sane and balanced compassion of the Prophet, upon him be peace, who commanded kindness to animals, and who also said: ‘If dogs were not a nation, I would command you to kill them.’