TV host Jassem Al-Mutawa spoke on his weekly show on the Saudi-based religious channel Iqra TV about lessons to be learned from the sexual behavior of animals. The following are excerpts:

Sheik Al-Mutawa: I have conducted a search on a number of web sites about sexual relations among animals and I have discovered that among many animals if the male wants to mate with the female they go somewhere else. I mean, they don't do it in front of all the animals. In most cases, this is done in front of the entire group, but in many cases there is a certain distancing. This is a matter of utmost importance.

In Imam Muslim's collection of traditions there is a nice story told by the Prophet Muhammad. In a group of monkeys, a female monkey mated with a male monkey, which was not the monkey that regularly mates with her. It is not the monkey that she is used to. All the monkeys gathered and stoned this female monkey when they saw her mating with a monkey that is not her monkey. I am saying that even though they are animals and even though Allah does not judge them for their actions, there is a type of modesty in them.