Ibn Awa: The Jackal That Terrifies Chickens More Than the Fox

The Son of the Howl

Start with the name, because the jackal's Arabic name is a tiny mystery story. Ibn awa — “son of awa” — and al-Damiri tells you exactly where it came from: the animal was named so because it takes shelter near the howling (عواء) of the young of the tree. Picture it: dusk, the crying of young birds or beasts in the branches, and the jackal slipping into the shadows below, drawn to the sound like a rumor.

Its plural is just as good. You don't say “ibn awas” — you say banat awa, “the daughters of awa.” And it keeps fine company: the weasel (ibn 'irs), the young camel (ibn makhad), the milk-camel (ibn labun) all pluralize the same way — banat 'irs, banat makhad, banat labun, banat awa. A whole grammar club of “sons of” animals.

Four Nicknames for One Sneaky Animal

The old Arabs loved giving animals kunyas — honorific nicknames, the way you'd call a respected man “father of” something. The jackal collected four: Abu Ayyub, Abu Dhi'b (“father of the little wolf”), Abu Ka'b, and Abu Ra'il.

Abu Dhi'b is the honest one. The jackal really is the wolf's scrappy little cousin — same family, smaller package, bigger attitude. When a culture hands an animal four different “father of” titles, you know it's been hanging around human settlements long enough to earn a reputation.

Caught? It Stinks Up the Cage

The entry preserves a couplet of old verse about the jackal, and it's gloriously undignified:

“The jackal is hard to hunt — and when it is caught, it reeks in the cage.”

ريح في قفص — “a stench in the cage.” This is folk observation at its most specific: hunters knew the jackal as nearly uncatchable, and the rare one that got trapped apparently filled its cage with such a smell that it became proverbial. Whether it's fear-musk or pure spite, the book records it straight-faced. You don't get a detail like that from imagination — you get it from someone's grandfather who trapped one once and never forgot the smell.

Chickens Fear It More Than the Fox

Here's the headline fact, and it's a beauty. The book states it flatly: the chickens' fear of the jackal is greater than their fear of the fox.

Why? Because when the jackal passes beneath them — while they're perched up on a tree or a wall — they fall down. All of them. Even a large flock. تساقطت — they drop, they tumble, they rain chickens.

The fox has to climb, sneak, and snatch. The jackal just strolls underneath the roost and the entire flock panics itself right out of the tree. It doesn't hunt the chickens so much as terrify them into delivering themselves. If the fox is a burglar, the jackal is a fire alarm that eats people.

Can You Eat It? The Scholars Argued

Then comes the legal section, and it's a genuine debate — not a footnote, a real scholarly split. The more correct view, according to the heavyweight Shafi'i texts (al-Muharrar, al-Minhaj, the two Hawis), is that eating the jackal is forbidden — because it hunts with its fangs, which puts it in the predator category.

But there's a wrinkle the book is honest about: if someone argued the jackal's fang is too weak to count, then it would rank with the hyena and the fox — and that would be a defensible position. The second opinion, the personal choice of Shaykh Abu Hamid, permits eating it outright.

Imam Ahmad, when asked, gave the blanket rule: everything that tears with its fangs is among the predators. Abu Hanifa and his two companions went with prohibition. So the jackal sits exactly on the legal fault line — fang or no fang — and the book lets the disagreement stand.

The Medieval Medicine Cabinet

The entry closes with its خواص — the “properties” list — and these are pure medieval folk belief. Read them as history, never as advice:

• Leave the jackal's tongue in a house, and quarreling breaks out among its people. A home-wrecking charm made from one organ.
• Its meat benefits madness and epilepsy that strikes at the end of the month.
• Hang its right eye on someone who fears the evil eye, and no eye will harm him.
• Hang its heart on a person, and he is safe from all predators — by GOD's permission.

The quarrel-tongue is my favorite. Somewhere in the medieval world, someone genuinely believed a jackal's tongue could start a family feud — which tells you less about tongues and more about how badly people wanted an explanation for why their in-laws fought.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is ibn awa?

   Ibn awa (ابن آوى) is the jackal in Hayat al-Hayawan — “the son of the howling one,” named for seeking shelter near the crying of young animals. It carries four kunyas (Abu Ayyub, Abu Dhi'b, Abu Ka'b, Abu Ra'il), pluralizes as banat awa, and stars in a proverb about stinking up its cage when caught. A small predator with an outsized folk reputation.

2. Why do chickens fear the jackal more than the fox?

   The entry states it as observed fact: when a jackal walks beneath chickens roosting on a tree or wall, the whole flock drops to the ground in terror — even a large one. The fox must work for its meal; the jackal's mere presence panics the birds into falling. It's the book's own explanation, and it reads like something a farmer told the author.

3. Is the jackal halal to eat?

   The entry records a real split. The more correct view in the major Shafi'i texts is prohibition, since it hunts with its fangs — a rule Imam Ahmad stated generally and Abu Hanifa's school adopted. But Shaykh Abu Hamid chose permissibility, and the book notes that if the jackal's fang counts as weak, it would rank with the hyena and fox. The debate is reported, not settled.