(3) Herbivorous animals having been ordained neither for...

(3) Herbivorous animals having been ordained neither for professional arts nor for hunting, have been gifted, some with slotted hoofs to save them from the hardness of the ground while grazing, while others have solid hooves to be able to squarely stand on the ground for better fitness as beasts of burden.

Carnivorous animals in their constitutional composition have sharp fangs, hard claws, and wide mouths to serve them in their nutrition through animal food as ordained for them, and they are constituted accordingly. They have been armed with such tools and implements as befit them for hunting. On a similar analogy, you will find the beak and the claws befitting them for their particular tasks.

If such claws were given to herbivorous animals, they would have been worse than useless; for they neither hunt nor catch flesh. And if the carnivorous animals were given hooves instead of claws, the would have failed to secure their necessities in the absence of suitable wherewithal. Don't you see that both these kinds of animals are gifted with exactly the things appropriately in consonance with their need - nay, therein lies their survival.

Now look at the quadrupeds and see how they follow their mothers. They neither need to be carried nor to be nurtured as is the case with the human babies. This is so because the mothers of those young ones do not possess the tools which the mothers of' human babies have. They possess kindness, love and the knowledge of the art of nurture with specialised hands and fingers to lift them. They are so constituted as to help themselves in all types of work.

You will find the same in birds, for example, the young ones of hen, partridge and grouse begin to pick up corn and move about as soon as hatched from eggs. Birds whose young ones are weak, without the strength to stand, for example those of the wild and domestic pigeons, have mothers with extra maternal instinct, so that they bring to their young one's mouths nourishment garnered by them in their crops. Such feedings continue until chicks can fend for themselves.

The pigeons don't have a large brood like the hens, to enable the females to rear them up adequately without starving them. Everyone thus receives a due share from the bounty of the Almighty Omniscient Allah. Just see how the legs of the animals are created in pairs to enable them to move easily, which would have been difficult, had they been created in odd numbers.