The balance of creation (al-tawazun al-kawni)

The Sheikh says God will gather wild beasts, animals and birds on the Day of Resurrection to take their rights and then become dust, because they have rights over human beings. ^{1 2} He gives his personal view, saying expressly that he is not speaking of lawful and unlawful, on caging wild animals and coloured songbirds for children to play with: a bird let out after a year in a cage has forgotten how to fly, so its life is ended; he calls for leaving creation to balance itself as its Lord made it. ^{2 3}

He relates that in 1957 the Chinese government ordered the people out to destroy the sparrow, which was eating the crops; people beat tin sheets from sunrise to sunset until the birds died of exhaustion, and then locusts fell upon the crops and laid them waste. He concludes that when man interferes in creation he spoils it (needs_source: the date and details as the Sheikh tells them). ^{3 4 5 6}

He quotes from 'sociologists' a humorous chain: the cockroach fears the mouse, the mouse the cat, the cat the dog, the dog its owner, the owner his wife, and the wife the cockroach, as an image of the balance of creation. ^{6 7}

The Sheikh retells the sparrow story, this time attributing the order to Mao Zedong 'in 58', and adds that sparrows fed on locusts, so once they were wiped out the locusts multiplied and devoured the crops (needs_source: in 'Wa Nafsin wa ma Sawwaha' the Sheikh gave the year as 1957; the discrepancy is recorded as it stands). ^{8 9 10}