In my grandfather’s house there is a real live parrot, and when I pass by it, it greets me and says ‘al-salamu ‘alaykum”. In this case do I have to return the greeting of this bird?


Praise be to Allah.

Firstly: 

Al-Fayyoomi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

The
babgha (parrot) is a well-known bird. The word babgha may be masculine or
feminine, and the plural is Babghawat. 

Al-Misbah al-Muneer fi Ghareeb al-Sharh al-Kabeer,
1/35 

Secondly: 

It
seems that it is not prescribed to return the greeting of a parrot which has
learnt how to say salams (Islamic greeting), because saying salam is an act
of worship and a supplication which requires intention on the part of the
one who said it, and there is no such intention on the part of this trained
creature. So one should not return its greeting. The ruling is the same as
that on a tape on which the greeting is recorded and can be heard. It is a
transmission of sound and does not come under the ruling on greeting when it
is broadcast live, in which case returning the greeting is prescribed and is
a communal obligation (fard kifayah).

Al-Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-‘Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him)
said:

Sometimes the greeting may be recorded and they put it on the tape and run
it. If it is recorded then you are not obliged to return the greeting,
because this is just a transmission of sound. 


Liqa’
al-Bab al-Maftooh,
28/229 

See
the rest of the fatwa and details on this issue in the answer to question
number

128737.

Based
on this, the parrot does not intend to give the greeting of salam, because
it does not possess the power of reason, and when it speaks it is just
repeating what it has been taught, without meaning what it says. 

Some
of the scholars have stated that it is not prescribed to prostrate if one
hears a verse from a parrot or from a recorded tape. 

One of
the conclusions of the book Bahjat al-Asma‘ fi Ahkam al-Sama‘ fi’l-Fiqh
al-Islami by Prof. ‘Ali ibn Dhariyan ibn Faris al-Hasan al-‘Anzi (published
by Dar al-Manar in Kuwait) is: 

The
listener need not do the prostration of recitation if he hears it from a
source that is not human, such as a trained bird like a parrot or hearing it
from an echo. End quote. 

And
Allah knows best.