[nagdu] Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog

Ginger Kutsch gingerKutsch at yahoo.com
Thu Mar 25 15:57:43 UTC 2010


Published on Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com)
 

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Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog
By Stanley Coren, Ph.D.
Created Mar 23 2010 - 7:02am
My attention was caught by an article in the Reading Evening Mail
which described how George Herridge, a 71-year-old blind
Englishman and cancer sufferer, was asked to get off a bus
because of the hysterical reaction to his seeing-eye dog by some
Muslim passengers. Certainly in early Islamic tradition, in early
Judaism and Christianity, dogs were generally considered to be
unclean, with the stigma arising from the scavenging pariah dogs.
Packs of dogs were a major problem in many Islamic centers. They
carried rabies and various other diseases, but it was recognized
that their scavenging filled an important function. Thus Xavier
Marmier wrote in the mid-nineteenth century that "disagreeable as
these animals may be, in the state of Constantinople they are
practically a necessary evil. Rectifying the lack of foresight of
the city police, they cleanse the streets of a great quantity of
matter which otherwise would putrefy and fill the air with
pestilential germs." However the incident involving Mr. Herridge
occurred in modern England, where there are no pariah dogs, and
the dog in question was a calm Labrador Retriever, working as a
service dog and under complete control.
 
A short time later I was at a university function and managed to
corner a professor who was an expert in Islamic matters. I
described the newspaper report and asked him about the
relationship between dogs and Islam.
 
He sighed and glanced upward and then explained, "Muslim beliefs
about dogs are sometimes confusing and contradictory. The
majority of both Sunni and Shi'a Muslim jurists consider dogs to
be ritually unclean but these beliefs are not unanimous. The
jurists from the Sunni Maliki School disagree with the idea that
dogs are unclean, and those of the Sunni Hanafi School are
ambiguous, allowing trade and care of dogs without religious
consequences. However all of these opinions are based, not on the
Koran itself, but on the Hadith, which are commentaries,
analyses, and interpretations of the Koran. It is these Hadith
that suggest that to be touched by a dog is to be defiled and
requires an act of purification. For instance they require that a
bowl from which a dog has eaten or drunk must be washed seven
times and scrubbed in earth before it is again fit for human
use."
 
If we look directly at the Koran itself, it turns out that dogs
are mentioned five times, and are never described as being
unclean. In fact the longest group of passages including a dog is
quite positive, and it relates to the story of the Seven
Sleepers. As the chronicle goes, during the short reign of the
Roman emperor Decius around A.D. 250, nonbelievers were
systematically persecuted, in an effort to strengthen the
state-supported religion. In the city of Ephesus (now in western
Turkey), seven faithful young men fled to a cave on Mount
Coelius. The pet dog of one followed them in their flight. Once
in the cave, some of the men feared that the dog-Kitmir by
name-might bark and reveal their hiding place, and they tried to
drive it away. At this point, God granted the dog the gift of
speech, and he said, "I love those who are dear unto God. Go to
sleep, therefore, and I will guard you." After the men had
settled down to sleep, leaning on the back wall of the cave, the
dog stretched out with his forelegs facing the entrance and began
his watch.
 
When Decius learned that religious refugees were hiding in some
of the local caves, he ordered that all the entrances be sealed
with stone. Kitmir maintained his vigil, even while the cave was
being sealed, and made sure that no one disturbed the sleepers.
The men were forgotten, and they slept for 309 years. When they
were finally awakened by workers excavating a section of the
mountain, the dog finally stirred and allowed his charges to
return to the world, which was now safe for their faith.
According to Moslem tradition, the dog Kitmir was admitted to
paradise upon his death.
 
"Certainly an unclean animal would not be admitted to paradise,"
the professor commented. "There is another passage, however, that
is often misinterpreted when the jurists who wrote the Hadith
note that Mohamed ordered 'Kill all dogs.'"
 
This command from the prophet resulted from a historical
incident, where the Governor of Medina was concerned about the
number of stray dogs overrunning the city, particularly because
of the threat of rabies and perhaps other diseases that were
spread by the pariah dogs foraging through the garbage. At first,
Mohammed took the uncompromising position that all the dogs
should be exterminated and thus issued his command. On
reflection, however, he mitigated his decree, for two major
reasons. The first was religious: canines constituted a race of
Allah's creatures, and He who created the race should be the only
one to dictate that it should be removed from the earth. The
second, more pragmatic, was that some categories of dogs,
particularly guard dogs, hunting dogs, and shepherd dogs, were
useful to humans and had hence earned their right to exist.
 
The Islamic professor added, "Some legends say that the prophet
himself actually owned one or more salukis that he used for
hunting. In fact one passage in the Koran quite specifically says
that any prey that is caught by dogs during a hunt can be eaten.
No purification, other than the mention of Allah's name, is
required of it. So, in effect, Mohamed nullified his early ruling
against the canine race.
 
"Further evidence against the idea that all dogs were to be
killed comes from another passage in the Koran. It says that a
prostitute noticed a dog near a well, who was suffering from
thirst and near to death. She took off her shoe, dipped it into
the well and allowed the dog to drink the water from it. Because
of this act of kindness, Mohamed absolved her of all of her sins
and allowed her to enter paradise. I find it hard to imagine that
if he really felt that all dogs were evil and were to be killed
that he would bless that women for saving a life that he had
condemned.
 
"I personally believe that the reason that the Hadiths condemn
dogs comes from another source historically. One of the religions
standing in the way of the spread of Islam was Zoroastrianism,
which was quite successful and had many adherents in the Middle
East. Dogs were prized by Zoroastrians, and treated with great
affection and reverence. If you look at the way history works it
is often the case that the gods of the old religion are converted
into the devils of the new religion. Similarly those things
prized by an old religion are often held up as objects of
hysterical hatred by the new, and the Muslim attitude toward dogs
fits into this category."
 
He then suddenly stopped in his narrative, as if he had had an
insight. "Tell me more about that seeing-eye dog on the
bus-specifically what color was it?"
 
"It was a black Labrador Retriever," I replied.
 
"That may explain part of it," he said. "While Mohamed rescinded
the sentence of death for dogs that work and have a useful
function, he allowed it to stand for one class of dogs-namely,
stray black dogs. The reason for this is that he believed that
the Devil often appears masquerading as a black dog. Perhaps that
Muslim family's concern was not because of their belief of the
unclean nature of dogs in general, but because of their fear that
they were in close proximity to the Devil-in the guise of that
particular black dog."
 
Stanley Coren is the author of many books including: The Modern
Dog, Why Do Dogs Have Wet Noses? The Pawprints of History, How
Dogs Think, How To Speak Dog, Why We Love the Dogs We Do, What Do
Dogs Know? The Intelligence of Dogs, Why Does My Dog Act That
Way? Understanding Dogs for Dummies, Sleep Thieves, The
Left-hander Syndrome
 
 
 
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Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/40001




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