Difference of Opinion Among Muslims Over Cow Slaughter

By S. Arshad, New Age Islam

29 May 2026

·         Jamiat-Ulema Hind demands ban on Cow Slaughter.

·         Some clerics demand declaration of cow the national animal.

·         Khwaja Hasan Nizami wrote a book justifying ban on cow slaughter.

·         Maulana Maududi opposed ban on cow slaughter.

·         Muslims of Sindh avoided cow sacrifice.

·         The cow has been sanctified in the Bhagvad Gita.

Every year a fervent debate on the social, religious and political aspects of cow slaughter in India is triggered on the eve of Eid-al-Adha. The majority Hindi community objects to the ritual cow sacrifice on Eid-al-Adha because they call it cow mother. Hindu reverence for the cow comes from its sanctification in the holy Hindu scripture the Bhagvad  Gita. In the Bhagvad Gita, the cow is revered as a symbol of divine nourishment, purity and the sanctity of all life. It emphasizes that cows. should be treated with deep reverence and recognised as a fundamental pillar of a peaceful, harmonious life.

On the other hand, the Muslims insist that sacrificing the cow on Eid-al-Adha is permissible by Islam and by sacrificing the cow along with other halal animals like goat, sheep and camel, they only fulfil their religious obligation. Importantly, the Indian courts of law have long maintained that though the sacrifice of the cow is permitted by Islamic Shariah, it is not mandatory by the Shariah. The Muslims have the option to sacrifice other halal animals to avoid social and legal problems.

Cow slaughter is prohibited in many states and this year the newly formed West Bengal government has imposed conditional ban on cow slaughter below the age of 14 years rendering cow sacrifice almost impracticable. But this year the demand for a countrywide ban cow slaughter and declaration of the cow India's national animal has been raised by prominent Muslim clerics and organisations in the backdrop of mob lynching of Muslim cattle traders across the country in the last few years. The imam of Nakhoda Mosque of Kolkata, Maulana Shafique Qasmi demanded a total ban on cow slaughter and declaration of cow the national animal while advising the Muslims to  stop consuming beef. Another influential cleric and the President of Jamiat-e-Ulema Hindi, Maulana Arshad Madani also made the same demand of declaring the cow the national animal and ban on beef. The Chairman of Rashtriya Alp Sankhyak Arakshan Morcha Perwez Siddique also made the same demand. As a result, a positive narrative of cow slaughter ban has got popularity among the Muslims of India in the hope that the ban on cow slaughter will discourage the Muslims from trading in the cows and be safe from mob lynching and hatred among the Hindus arising out of cow slaughter. This step of the Muslims has been  widely appreciated by the Hindus.

But there are some Muslim clerics and self-styled representatives and intellectuals of Muslims who have opposed the demand for ban on cow slaughter. For example, Maulana Talib Rehmani opposed the demand to ban cow slaughter on the wrong premise that the Muslims did not get reprieve after accepting the handover of the Babri mosque to Hindus though they had hoped that after the Babri mosque verdict, other mosques would not be claimed. Therefore, Maulana Rehmani thinks that after accepting cow slaughter ban, the Muslims may face other problems. Another cleric Ubaidullah Azmi is also of the same opinion that accepting cow slaughter ban was bowing under compulsion and was not in accordance with the Islamic spirit.

 However, theirs is the minority view and the majority of the country's Muslims are of the view that cow slaughter should be totally  banned and the cow should be declared a national animal.

The difference of opinion on cow slaughter among the Muslim intelligentsia is not new. The Muslim intellectuals and Islamic thinkers have always been divided on the issue.

According to the legal expert Mr Faizan Mustafa, Babur had advised Humayun not to allow cow slaughter as it would offend the religious sensibilities of Hindus. The greatest Mughal emperor Akbar who had taken several administrative and cultural steps to promote communal harmony among the Hindus and the Muslims had banned cow slaughter to honour his grandfather's will. However, his move was opposed by the Sufi Mujaddid Alf Sani Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi who was of the view that Muslims should not be prevented from cow slaughter under a Muslim government.

However, in certain periods of pre-Independence and post-independence India Muslims have not only advocated a ban on cow slaughter but have themselves taken the initiative to abandon cow slaughter for the sake of forging Hindu-Muslim unity for a bigger political and national cause. Muslims had abandoned the practice of cow slaughter during the revolt of 1857 to bring greater unity between the Hindus and the Muslims to fight against the East India Company.

The most successful campaign against cow slaughter was started in 1919 by the Muslim leaders of the Khilafat Movement like Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Hakeem Ajmal Khan, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani, Maulana Abdul Bari and others. The purpose was to bring Hindus closer to Muslims to form a powerful platform against the British government. Under this campaign, Muslims not only abandoned cow slaughter but also rescued cows meant for slaughter and returned them to Hindus.

The movement received another shot in the arm by an ideological campaign run by one of the greatest Urdu writers and a Sufi of Chishtiya order Khwaja Hasan Nizami who wrote a book titled Tark-e-Gaukushi (Abandoning the practice of Cow slaughter) in 1921.  Therefore, these political and ideological campaigns had a great impact on the collective Muslim psyche and cow slaughter was discouraged, though not abandoned, among the Muslims of India.

Interestingly, before the partition of India, Muslims in the Sindh, Balochistan region had mostly sacrificed goats, sheep and camels. They did not sacrifice cows much. This may be because Rig Veda was composed in this region and Hindus and the region was a centre of Vedic culture before the advent of Islam. Therefore, even after converting to Hinduism, people did not eat beef. After the partition, Muslims migrating from India brought their habit of beef consumption to Pakistan. And gradually, cow slaughter and beef became popular in Pakistan. Still, buffaloes, bulls and goats are widely sacrificed in Pakistan because of the traditional and cultural background.

In post-Independence India, cow slaughter has remained a major cause of social conflict between the Hindus and the Muslims. Cow slaughter was the cause of many communal riots in India. In later periods, cow vigilantism grew among Hindus and cow slaughter became a political issue. More than 20 states have banned cow slaughter. Recently, the union territory of Muslim majority Lakshadwip have  banned cow slaughter.

Growing cow vigilantism has caused the growing instances of mob lynching of Muslims in recent years and stirred the conscience of both Muslim and Hindu leadership. For example, the chief of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat recently condemned mob lynching of Muslims by the so-called cow vigilantes saying that mob lynching in the name of protection of cows was against the spirit of Hindutva. In 2016, reacting to several mob lynching incidents, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had criticized the so-called cow vigilantes and said that cow vigilantism had become a business for some Hindu groups. He had said:

"I get angry at those who are into the Gau-Rakshak business. A Gau-bhakt (cow devotee) is different, Gau Seva (cow protection) is different. I have seen that some people are into crimes all night and wear the garb of Gau-rakshak in the day".

Some prominent Muslim leaders and clerics have called for a central law on cow slaughter to stop communal incidents of Hindu Muslim riots or mob lynching. In 2015, an activist of Hyderabad Maulana Syed Hussain Madani had started a campaign against cow slaughter. Many clerics and Islamic scholars of Andhra Pradesh, including Maulana Anwar Ahmad of Jamia Nizamia and Maulana Anisur Rahman Azmi of AIMPLB had joined the campaign and asked Muslims to adopt a pragmatic approach on animal sacrifice on Eid-al-Adha in the light of the Quran and hadith and given the communal conflict arising out of cow slaughter.  Darul Uloom Deoband had earlier also issued a fatwa advising Muslims to avoid the sacrifice of cows on Eid-al-Adha and instead sacrifice small animals to avoid communal conflagration.

On the other hand, some hardline Muslim clerics have opposed a ban on cow slaughter terming it a violation of the religious rights of Muslims. During the Khilafat Movement when Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Maulana Shaukat Ali and Hakeem Ajmal Khan advocated a ban on cow slaughter, Islamic scholar Syed Abul Ala Maududi was against it.  Similarly, when the J&K High Court issued an order to strictly implement the already existing law against cow slaughter in the state, some prominent Muslim clerics, including Mir Waiz Umar Farooque opposed it saying that the cow slaughter ban in a Muslim majority state was against the rights of the Muslims.

Therefore, thanks to the campaigns of Muslim intellectuals and liberal clerics against cow slaughter and the evolving social and political crisis in India, a consensus is gradually emerging among the Muslims of India in favour of a total ban on cow slaughter.

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