According to the popular version of the story, the Prophet ﷺ was preparing to rise for prayer when he noticed that the cat had fallen asleep on part of his garment. Rather than wake or disturb the animal, he is said to have cut away the portion of the sleeve beneath the sleeping cat and left it resting peacefully while he went to pray.
The story has become a powerful image of gentleness toward animals and is often presented today as an example of the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ compassion.
However, there is an important historical distinction.
There is also no established early narration identifying a particular cat belonging to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ by the name Muezza, Muʿizza, or Muʿizzah.
For this reason, the story should not be described as an authenticated hadith or as a confirmed event from the life of the Prophet ﷺ.
It is more accurate to introduce it with wording such as:
“Later popular tradition tells…”
or:
“A beloved story associated with Muezza says…”
rather than:
“According to an authentic hadith…”
Where Might the Sleeve Story Have Come From?
Interestingly, an extremely similar story appears in later Islamic historical literature — but it concerns another person.
The medieval Muslim historian Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi records a story about the famous spiritual teacher Ahmad al-Rifaʿi, who died in 578 AH / 1182 CE.
According to the account, a cat fell asleep upon Ahmad al-Rifaʿi’s sleeve when the time for prayer arrived. Rather than disturb the sleeping animal, he cut the sleeve away.
When he returned from prayer, the cat had awakened. He then reattached and stitched the sleeve back onto his garment.
The similarity between this medieval account and the later Muezza story is striking. Some scholars therefore suggest that the story may eventually have become associated with the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ through later popular storytelling.
This cannot be proven with certainty, but it is one possible explanation for the origin of the familiar Muezza legend.
What the Authentic Sunnah Does Say About Cats
Although the story of Muezza and the cut sleeve cannot presently be authenticated, genuine hadith provide clear evidence that cats lived closely among people in the early Muslim community and that Islamic teaching encouraged humane treatment of animals.
Cats Were Not Considered Impure
A famous report concerns the Companion Abu Qatadah.
A cat came to drink from a vessel of water. Abu Qatadah tilted the vessel so that the animal could drink comfortably.
He explained that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had taught that cats were not considered impure because they regularly moved around among people and within their homes.
This report is important because it gives us a genuine glimpse into the ordinary relationship between cats and humans in the Prophet’s ﷺ community.
Cats were familiar domestic animals moving freely through households, drinking from vessels and living alongside people.
The Woman Who Neglected a Cat
An even stronger teaching appears in Sahih Muslim.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ told of a woman who confined a cat and allowed it to die. She did not feed or give water to the animal, nor did she release it so that it could find food for itself.
The Prophet ﷺ said that she was punished because of this cruelty.
This narration is preserved through multiple chains in Sahih Muslim.
Its message is direct: neglecting and causing suffering to an animal was treated as a serious moral wrongdoing.
What This Means for the Story of Muezza
The historical situation is therefore fascinating.
We do not have reliable evidence that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ owned a cat named Muezza.
We also do not have an authenticated hadith saying that he cut his sleeve because his cat was sleeping upon it.
Yet the moral idea that made the story so popular — compassion toward animals — fits comfortably within teachings that are authentically attributed to the Prophet ﷺ.
The genuine hadith literature teaches that cats were familiar members of everyday life, that they were not regarded as ritually impure simply because they moved among humans, and that cruelty or neglect toward them was morally condemned.
So the Muezza legend can be appreciated as a later story expressing a broader Islamic ethic of kindness, while still distinguishing that tradition from authenticated history.
How We Present the Story in the Muezza Project
In this project, the famous sleeping-cat scene is presented as later tradition and artistic storytelling, not as established historical fact.
Our interpretation imagines Muezza resting peacefully upon a garment as the call to prayer approaches.
The scene is deliberately quiet.
A small cat sleeps in the warmth of an Arabian home. The fabric beneath it shifts slightly with its breathing. Outside, the settlement begins to stir.
Rather than turn the moment into spectacle, the stop-motion scene focuses on gentleness — the contrast between something as ordinary as a sleeping animal and the care required not to disturb it.
The scene represents the spirit of the later Muezza tradition while remaining transparent about what the historical sources actually establish.
History, Tradition, and Imagination
Throughout the Muezza project we distinguish between three different kinds of material:
Documented History
Information supported by early Islamic sources, hadith, geography, historical research, and material culture.
Later Tradition
Beloved stories transmitted in later generations, including the tradition of Muezza and the sleeping-cat story.
Artistic Reconstruction
Scenes created for the stop-motion narrative where the historical record is silent.
Muezza belongs primarily to the second and third categories.
The cat provides a gentle narrative companion through which we can explore the authentic world of 7th-century Arabia while being clear about where history ends and imagination begins.
The Heart of the Tradition
Whether or not a cat named Muezza historically slept upon the Prophet’s ﷺ sleeve, the continued popularity of the story reveals something meaningful.
Generations of people remembered the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ as a figure whose mercy extended beyond human relationships to the treatment of animals and the natural world.
The authenticated traditions themselves preserve powerful teachings against cruelty and neglect.
The story of Muezza therefore survives not simply because it is a charming tale about a cat, but because its central image — choosing gentleness when one has the power to disturb — resonates deeply with the broader moral tradition of mercy associated with Islam.