for women to imitate them in those matters, then it is all the more impermissible for human beings to imitate beasts in matters distinctive to them.

This is because human beings and animals have both shared features and distinctive features that set them apart. Even shared activities—such as eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, making sounds, and moving—are accompanied by the distinctive human nature, so human beings are subject to particular rules concerning them. They may not imitate how animals perform these activities. This applies all the more to matters peculiar to animals. In reality, however, human beings and animals share no identical element; rather, human beings possess attributes that resemble those of animals in certain respects. The common element exists only in the mind, not in external reality.

Since this is so, Allah Most High has made human beings essentially different from animals and has placed their perfection and soundness in matters suited to them, in none of which are they identical to animals. Thus, if a person deliberately makes himself resemble an animal and alters Allah’s creation, he has fallen into conduct that corrupts the natural disposition and violates the revealed law. This is forbidden. And Allah knows best.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—also said:

Section

His words:

“So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in their husbands’ absence what Allah would have them guard”

entail that a wife must obey her husband in all respects: serving him, travelling with him, granting him marital access, and so forth, as