The wolf

الذئب

Joseph's wolf, of which his father Jacob warned lest it eat him while they were heedless; the brothers claimed the wolf ate him and would not have been believed even had they spoken true. In hadith a shepherd girl told the Prophet ﷺ a wolf had eaten a ewe of her flock.

Depth

At a glance

Region
Global / Diaspora

Animals and mercy

The long-form text for this entry has not been written yet. The facts and connections below come from the museum's data.

Connections

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Mentioned in
Muwatta 2251· Muwatta 2597· Muwatta 1030· Qur'an 12:13· Qur'an 12:14· Qur'an 12:17
Related to
The leopard· Yusuf (Joseph)

People and things also explored

Malik ibn Anas· The lion (qaswara)· The leopard· Muwatta 1030· The cat· The cheetah· The fox· The hyena

Sources

  • Tanzil Project, Qur'an text v1.1
  • Muwatta, recension of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi (ed. Bashar Awwad Ma'ruf)
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “The wolf”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/wolf/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-09.

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Living

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Related

Malik ibn Anas

Imam of Medina and author of the Muwatta; born in Medina, he studied with its scholars and taught there until his death in 179 AH. The Maliki school of law bears his name. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says the date of his birth is not known, the proposed dates ranging between 90 and 97 AH, and that he died in Medina in 179 AH and was buried in al-Baqi. It describes the Muwatta as the earliest surviving Muslim law book after the legal corpus of Zayd ibn Ali, and says the few certain facts of his life are buried under legends.