Peregrine Falcon

The tradition of innovation

Fun fact about birders: they love fun facts. On my first birdwatching walk, I was overloaded with them. “Did you know that the fastest of all animals is a bird?” our guide asked us. “It’s the Peregrine Falcon. Whilst diving, it can reach a speed of more than 200 miles per hour (more than 320 km/h). That is three times as fast as a cheetah!” I was amazed. About half a year later, I had the honor of meeting a Peregrine Falcon for the first time. She was introduced to me as she was resting on a falconer’s glove.

I was attending a falconry event at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The falconers shared stories about the art of hunting with birds of prey. Of course, they shared many fun facts: “Did you know that falconry has been practiced almost universally for thousands of years, dating back to before the beginning of written history?” I did not know that. In fact, I hardly knew anything about falconry.

Falconry is a form of hunting in which Falcons or other birds of prey are domesticated and trained as hunting partners. With their impeccable eyesight (fun fact: eight times better than ours) and their incredible speed and agility, Falcons can easily capture various sorts of prey, such as rabbits, hares, and birds. Through the reward of food, falconers train their birds to fly out and return to them. If the training is successful, the Falcon will bring its prey back to its human hunting partner, who in return keeps providing the Falcon with consistent and sufficient nutrition. But if, for whatever reason, the relationship is no longer mutually beneficial, the Falcon might simply take flight and never return.

For centuries falconry was used as a means of survival, especially in harsh environments, such as the Arabian desert. There, migrating Peregrine Falcons were captured and trained for collaborative hunting, only to be released again once the hunting season was over. As such, falconry provided Arabs with a sustainable and efficient way to provide for their families. In Surah Al-Ma’idah, ‘The Feast’, the fifth chapter of the Qur’an, this practice of falconry is confirmed to be permissible: “They ask you what is made lawful for them. Say: ‘All good things have been made lawful for you and what is caught by your hunting animals and birds of prey which you have trained according to what God has taught you. So eat what they catch for you, but mention the Name of God over it.’ And be mindful of God. Surely God is swift in account” (Qur’an 5:4).

The verse mentions the idea that God taught humanity how to train birds of prey. Of course, in essence, everything we know has been taught to us at some point. Speech was taught to us directly by our caretakers as children, but who taught them? And who taught their teachers? Even if God did not teach us something ‘directly’ through revelation, we were taught ‘indirectly’ through observing and interacting with the rest of God’s creation. So when we learn that God taught humanity speech (Qur’an 55:4), this does not literally have to mean that some personified image of God gave Adam a language course. All knowledge ultimately is created, meaning that all knowledge ultimately derives from the Creator, who is the ultimate Teacher. In that way, of course, God taught humanity falconry.

But the phrase may even be a more direct reference to another Qur’anic story. A story of the Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him. In Surah Al-Baqarah, ‘The Cow”, the second chapter of the Qur’an, we are told: “When Abraham said: ‘Show me, my Lord, how You revive the dead!’ God said: ‘Do you not believe?’ Abraham answered: ‘Yes, indeed I do believe, but just to reassure my heart.’ Then God said: ‘Take four birds and train them to come back to you. Then place them separately on each hilltop and call them. They will come flying to you. Know that God is Almighty and Wise’” (Qur’an 2:260).

In this interpretation of the verse, when Abraham asks God how the dead will be resurrected, God teaches Abraham the principles of falconry. The birds so effortlessly flying back to their point of origin is a sign, a proof given by God of how effortlessly we will be returned to our point of origin after our brief time on earth. Our life on earth is but the flight of a bird. In that metaphor, if we are the bird and God is the Master Falconer, Islam is the training. I mean Islam in its literal meaning as ‘surrender’ to God. ‘Surrender’ through the training of witnessing, prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage. If we were to truly follow this training, our witnessing would be as clear as the eyesight of the Falcon, and our dive in sujud (prostration) would be as powerful as the Falcon’s dive. Like the Falcon, we too would have faith through periods of fasting and scarcity; we too would know restraint and share our meals in charity, acknowledging that they belong to our Master Falconer who feeds us all. And when the hunting season is over, we too would easily complete our pilgrimage home.

Falconry is a sign! A sign on the horizon! What a beautiful Islamic tradition. In my excitement, I found a sudden craving to learn more about contemporary falconry in the Arabian peninsula. I love a good tradition, and I was thrilled when I read that falconry is still practiced with pride. But that excitement did not last long.

Although falconry is still very popular in Arabia, it is no longer practiced as a sustainable means to gather local food in the harsh desert environment, but has rather become a highly commercialized sport. With the coming of unequally distributed excessive oil wealth to the United Arab Emirates, falconry has become irrelevant as a means for basic sustenance and has instead become a means for the pride of the rich. Falcons are not caught and released anymore but are rather bred in captivity and sold for prices from 1000 up to 100,000 dollars. Fun fact: there are even Falcon hospitals where rich falconers pay incredible amounts of money to get their birds ready for a race. These ‘Ferrari Falcons’ are trained with the use of cars and drones and compete in falconry festivals with prize money of millions of dollars. Whoever’s Falcon kills a Pigeon first gets all the fame and glory. What happens to the Pigeon? Who cares!

These Emirati falconers claim the stamp of tradition, but apart from the fact that they include Falcons in their games, they have nothing in common with the falconry described in the Qur’an. This ‘Ferrari falconry’ is elitist, wasteful, and vain. Why is it that in adhering to ‘tradition’ we so often favor form over substance? Why is it that we somehow accept the reduction of the tradition of falconry to ‘racing with birds’ instead of ‘sustainable collaboration with nature’ or ‘remembering the sign of resurrection given to Abraham’?

Those who claim tradition through a continuation of ‘form’ are deemed to be the ‘real traditionalists’. Those who cover their bodies in a thobe (traditional Arab dress), clean their teeth with a miswak (stick), and memorize the Qur’an. There is nothing wrong with a continuation of ‘form’. In fact, it can be beautiful. But it is meaningless when it is not accompanied by a continuation of ‘substance’. When that thobe is made from environmentally harmful polyester in a factory where women work in slave-like conditions, only to be packaged in further plastic, shipped by airplane, and sold for an unfair price. What is traditional about that? When that miswak is ordered on a smartphone via Amazon from God knows where to clean the teeth of a mouth that does not produce beautiful speech. What is traditional about that? When the memorized Qur’anic verses are just a bunch of sounds that are not reflected upon or implemented and embodied through the memorizer’s actions. What is traditional about that?

The Twenty-eight UN Climate Conference (COP28) has just come to an end in the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the President of the Conference, wore the ‘form’ of tradition with his beautiful white thobe. He started his Preliminary Remarks with the Qur’anic opening phrase: Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, ‘in the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate’. He greeted all those present at the Conference with as-salamu ‘alaykum, ‘peace be upon you’. But did he also embody the ‘content’ of tradition?

Did he act in the name of the Most Compassionate as he used his position as COP President to push his company’s fossil fuel interests? Did he bring peace upon those present when he lied that there is “no science” to back the demands for a phase-out of fossil fuels?

There is a tendency amongst Muslims who focus on preserving the ‘form’ of tradition to label things that align not in ‘form’ but in ‘content’ as bid‘ah (‘innovation’ - negative connotation). But in this everchanging world, I’d say it’s much more important to keep our content straight. The traditional form of falconry is beautiful, but when we mess up the contents, it gets ugly. I don’t think it’s very valuable to fly captively bred Falcons as fast as we can to win prize money and fame. I do think it’s very valuable to maintain a sustainable, mutually beneficial relationship with our natural environment, and even more so, to remember the sign God gave to Abraham. Because, fun fact, that’s pretty traditional.