Ma`rifat Adyan

In the authoritative Islamic and Zoroastrian texts, some rights are established on the interaction between man, as the most noble creature, and other creatures. These rights are extracted from the worldviews of these two religions concerning the belief in God and position of good and evil in the universe. Some claim that compared to Zoroastrianism, Islam adopts an aggressive attitude in this regard and shows lack of respect to other creatures. This study seeks to extract these rights from the reliable sources and books of the two religions, depict a true picture of their interaction with animals and explain the viewpoints of each of them. The study results show that, except for few cases, such as supplying food or keeping oneself from harm, killing of animals is not allowed in Islam. But Zoroastrians who believe in the existence of demonic and evil creatures divides animals into three categories: sacred, permissible and repugnant. According to Zoroastrianism, the third category of animals are sentenced to death even if they do not intrude into man’s habitat or cause no harm to man’s life or property.