HT reviewer Lamat R Hasan picks her favourite read of 2025

In this 1,100 year old Arabic text, the Baghdad-based author laments that he is surrounded by greedy and untrustworthy men and concludes that dogs are far more virtuous and capable

Ibn al-Marzuban, a Persian philologist, wrote Fadl al-kilab or The Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes 1100 years ago. A casual conversation with a friend over the declining moral standards of humans prompted him to write this book.

“Al-Marzuban asserts a dog is more compassionate towards its owner than a father is to his son, or a brother to his sibling. A dog never falls short in this duty, even if it is treated harshly, nor does it abandon his family, even if it is abandoned, often staying by the grave of its owner until it dies.” (Aris & Phillips, 1978)

Originally written in Arabic, the book, which was translated into English by GR Smith and MA Abdel Haleem (Aris & Phillips, 1978) is divided into two sections: Man has gone to the dogs and Man’s best friend. The original Arabic version is free-to-read on a couple of websites, and marked my first attempt to read a book in Arabic, armed with translation apps.

Given the dog-hating world we inhabit, every single line made sense. Written in a colloquial manner, the Baghdad-based author laments how he is increasingly being surrounded by men who are greedy, deceitful and untrustworthy, and how drastically the world has changed within his lifetime. He backs up his arguments offering stories and anecdotes from famous people of his time. He then compares men to dogs and regretfully concludes that dogs are far more virtuous, intelligent and capable. At his bitterest, he presents a distinction between a human dog and a canine dog.

“If a dog wags its tail at you, trust its affection, but do not trust the wagging of people. A wagging tail is a traitor,” he writes.

Even though, in the Islamic world, the presence of a dog is considered impure, Al-Marzuban points out that every single Bedouin tent had a dog. “A settlement cannot be considered a village until there is a dog to bark in it…,” he informs.

A renowned scholar of Islam, he explains why the presence of dogs was discouraged in the desert region – such as the shortage of water to clean the impurity -- which eventually led to the cultural exclusion of dogs from Muslim households. He also underlines the Hadiths (source of Islamic law), one of which explicitly states that a man was sent to paradise for offering water to a thirsty dog.

Reviewer Lamat R Hasan (Courtesy the subject)

Al-Marzuban asserts a dog is more compassionate towards its owner than a father is to his son, or a brother to his sibling. A dog never falls short in this duty, even if it is treated harshly, nor does it abandon his family, even if it is abandoned, often staying by the grave of its owner until it dies.

He writes that a dog’s importance is evident at the frequency at which it is mentioned by people, both in praise and condemnation. This seems to be a perfect description of our times, when dogs headline our discourse, and the cure for all ills pervading our society apparently lies in their elimination! Wonder what Al-Marzuban would have thought about the degradation of the human race, 1100 years on?

Lamat R Hasan is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi.