بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Anyone who has spent time with the opening duʿāʾ of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya knows the moment. Imam Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (ʿa) turns to describe the human being who grows content with fleeting pleasures, and then the prayer says:

فَمِنْهُمْ مَنْ لَتَصَرَّفُوا فِي مِنَنِهِ فَلَمْ يَحْمَدُوهُ، وَتَوَسَّعُوا فِي رِزْقِهِ فَلَمْ يَشْكُرُوهُ، وَلَوْ كَانُوا كَذٰلِكَ لَخَرَجُوا مِنْ حُدُودِ الْإِنْسَانِيَّةِ إِلَىٰ حَدِّ الْبَهِيمِيَّةِ
There are among them those who dispose freely of His gifts but do not praise Him (fa-lam yaḥmadūhu), and who expand in His provision but do not thank Him (fa-lam yashkurūhu). Were they to remain thus, they would exit the boundaries of humanity and enter the limit of al-bahīmiyyah.

For generations, translators and commentators have rendered al-bahīmiyyah as “bestiality” or “the level of brute beasts.” The image is stark: a human being, by abandoning the path of conscious devotion, degrades himself to the rank of an animal. There is truth in this reading, but it rests on an assumption that may not do justice to the Arabic root or to the Qurʾān’s own depiction of the animal world — and, crucially, it can close the door to a deeper spiritual insight the Imam is placing before us.

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