India, Dec. 19 -- Ibn al-Marzuban, a Persian philologist, wrote Fadl al-kilab or The Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes 1100 years ago. A casual conversation with a friend over the declining moral standards of humans prompted him to write this book.

Originally written in Arabic, the book, which was translated into English by GR Smith and MA Abdel Haleem (Aris & Phillips, 1978) is divided into two sections: Man has gone to the dogs and Man's best friend. The original Arabic version is free-to-read on a couple of websites, and marked my first attempt to read a book in Arabic, armed with translation apps.

Given the dog-hating world we inhabit, every single line made sense. Written in a colloquial manner, the Baghdad-ba...