[nagdu] Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog
Tamara Smith-Kinney
tamara.8024 at comcast.net
Mon Mar 29 03:30:41 UTC 2010
Cheryl,
Interesting take. I get the go to church and pray advice all the time. How
I respond, honestly, depends on how much time I have and what other feedback
I am receiving from the person. Also, whether or not they're standing
directly in my way or invading my psersonal space or touching me... Then
again, I grew up in a family -- and overall religious culture -- that does
not value thought or intelligent discussion or -- especially! -- any hint
that there might be alternative interpretations of bits and pieces of
scripture. So I'm a little cynical about taking that approach unless I
have the time and clinclination to see what happens. So far, I've
encountered rought same attitudes in people who have approached me that way
here. Sigh. I stopped trying to discuss when I discovered that this would
lead to a mand that I promise to watch this or that televangelist on this or
that chaneel at whatever time on whatever night.
Don't know if that's a west coast cultural thing or what, but I've decided
the better course of valor is to just be noncomittal and smile sweetly while
getting around them to move on.
Having family from all 3 three of the "major" faiths must be great, though,
especially when discussing guide dog use or any other blindness issue on a
religious or scriptural basis. Especially when the people you can ask
questions of an learn from are also from varies cultural backgrounds. I
have ridden with more than one muslim cabbie in this area, and they seem
fine with the dog. But I haven't come to know them well enough to discuss
the dog or anything else on a comparitive religion type basis. Bummer for
me!
Tami Smith-Kinney
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of cheryl echevarria
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:11 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog
My ex-husband who I am friendly with and a person who has read the Koran in
respect to him, when we were married, that the only thing the koran says and
mind you it is the translation and the understanding and this is in any
religion I will get to my example in a minute on that one.
In the koren it states that no man should eat of the plant that a dog has
eaten from and that is all it says in the Koran, in fact my ex-husband had a
dog in Egypt and he lived in the house and not out side. It is all of how
someone was taught in there household not from the Koran as well.
My mother-in-law to whom she still loves and hates my ex's new wife and she
is from Egypt. I am so proud. When I speak to her on the phone and I ask her
these questions all the time, that is the translations she gives me
referring to dogs.
She says some people don't like dogs in there home, just like people here
in this country keep dogs outside, and in egypt they do have people who use
guide dogs as well. Egypt is much more modern the some of the other Arab
countries.
So she says that it has nothing to do with the Koran, but the teaching of
it. She says no where in the Koran says that there should be killing of us
either. And from someone who has read the Koran no where does it say that
either.
So it all depends on the person's up bringing in their household.
Now getting back to everyone interpreting the words in the bible to someone.
It says in the bible that Jesus made blind men see. Well a number of times
I have people come to me and say oh I am so sorry you are blind maybe if you
go to church and pray about it god will give you your vision back.
I kindly say to people, first of all I am jewish, my husband is Catholic
and my ex-husband muslim, I have all 3 religons in my household. The
scriptures say that Jesus made blind men see. Now I say to them in return
does that mean he made someone like me see who is blind or does that mean
that someone who is blind to faith make them see.
All depends in the person who is return and interpreting it to others.
Cheryl Echevarria
Independent Travel Consultant
http://Echevarriatravel.com<http://echevarriatravel.com/>
1-866-580-5574
http://blog.echevarriatravel.com<http://blog.echevarriatravel.com/>
Reservations at echevarriatravel.com<mailto:Reservations at echevarriatravel.com>
Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Montrose Travel CST-1018299-10
----- Original Message -----
From: Albert J Rizzi<mailto:albert at myblindspot.org>
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog
Users'<mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog
Ugh. My spell checker replaced what should have been Muslims with museums.
Sorry.
Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
CEO/Founder
My Blind Spot, Inc.
90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
New York, New York 10004
www.myblindspot.org<http://www.myblindspot.org/>
PH: 917-553-0347
Fax: 212-858-5759
"The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who is
doing it."
Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org>
[mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Albert J Rizzi
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 12:40 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog
We have the same issues in Manhattan. I find however that many museums are
very interested in discussing the Koran and this would make for one great
dialogue for sure.
Albert J. Rizzi, M.Ed.
CEO/Founder
My Blind Spot, Inc.
90 Broad Street - 18th Fl.
New York, New York 10004
www.myblindspot.org<http://www.myblindspot.org/>
PH: 917-553-0347
Fax: 212-858-5759
"The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who is
doing it."
Visit us on Facebook LinkedIn
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org>
[mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Jewel S.
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 12:21 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Dogs and Islam: The Devil and the Seeing-Eye Dog
A very interesting article! It is a sad thing that the person was
asked off the bus because of people's unrealistic beliefs about
uncleanliness or the devil's presence. But it brought to light this
issue, so it was in a way, a good thing.
Many Islamic taxi drivers also refuse to take a passenger with a guide
dog or assistance dog, saying that their taxi will be unclean.
Officials have been trying to make these drivers accept guide dog
teams in their taxis, but I know in D.C. at least, it came to the
point of firing and banning several taxi drivers from working in taxi
companies for their refusal to comply with the ADA.
~Jewel
On 3/25/10, Ginger Kutsch
<gingerKutsch at yahoo.com<mailto:gingerKutsch at yahoo.com>> wrote:
> Published on Psychology Today
(http://www.psychologytoday.com<http://www.psychologytoday.com/>)
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------
>
> 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
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------
>
> Source URL:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/40001<http://www.psychologytoday.com/nod
e/40001>
>
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