The earliest Arabic sources do not encompass the entire animal kingdom under a single term. This book traces the development of generic categories referring to animals throughout all branches of Arabic literature, including poetry, theology, philosophy, and medicine, from the 6th to the 10th century. How would a jurist or a philosopher define animality? How did the large-scale translation of Greek works into Arabic reshape broader cultural perspectives? By highlighting the variety of conceptions held over a period of five centuries, this book confronts us with the cultural contingency of classification.