I couldn't reconcile Islam's stance on dogs - it led me to try and understand the reasoning behind it which opened Pandora's Box. It ripped open and exposed the very frail foundations upon which 'Islam' is built. It has flaws - serious flaws. I now have a dog but can no longer follow mainstream Islam - this blog is my way of expressing the brutal wake-up call I've had in the hope of helping others.
As a Muslim I never knew about this hadith about dogs.
Check it out.
A'isha reported that Gabriel (peace be upon him) made a promise with Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) to come at a definite hour; that hour came but he did not visit him. And there was in his hand (in the hand of Allah's Apostle) a staff. He threw it from his hand and said:
Never has Allah or His messengers (angels) ever broken their promise. Then he cast a glance (and by chance) found a puppy under his cot and said: 'A'isha, when did this dog enter here?
She said: By Allah, I don't know He then commanded and it was turned out. Then Gabriel came and Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said to him: You promised me and I waited for you, but you did not come, whereupon he said: It was the dog in your house which prevented me (to come), for we (angels) do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture.
Reference : Sahih Muslim 2104 a
In-book reference : Book 37, Hadith 126
USC-MSA web (English) reference : Book 24, Hadith 5246
Now, my previous Muslim mind was conditioned to believe that Aisha said these words and that this is a true story. That this was a way of teaching Muhammad and a way of teaching us, his followers. I would not have questioned it.
But, this hadith is full of serious holes and serious questions.
Firstly, Aisha did not say these words. Someone said to Bukhari, that somebody said that he heard from someone who heard from Aisha that.....and so the story continues. (Sorry I didn't want to try and spell the Arabic names into English - I'm lazy!)
So it's a story. A tale. Whether Aisha said it or not who can know? But these are not even words of the Prophet - they're Aisha's words of his words and if you look in Bukhari you will find different versions of this hadith with different bits missing or new details added. This clearly shows the Chinese Whispers effect in terms of what Bukhari ended up with.
Secondly, hold on................. the Prophet threw his staff from his hand? That does not sound like the Prophet according to other hadith and according to history in which Muhammad is painted as a master of patience. Surely throwing your walking stick away in a tantrum because an angel broke a promise to you is not Prophet-like behaviour? Which makes me believe this never happened.
Thirdly, you're telling me the Prophet of God, in receipt of revelation and waiting to commune with the Angel Gabriel, who is hyper-aware and tuned into all dimensions of space and time, didn't realise there was a puppy under his cot? LOL. If you have ever spent 3 mins. with a puppy you will know this is plain absurd and makes a mockery of Muhammad ("unless the puppy was asleep?" but come on...that's making excuses because you have to - apologetics). This is not a hadith - this is nonsense someone made up for some stupid reason!
Fourthly, let's just think about what happened here - a meeting between Gabriel and the Prophet of God was postponed because of a puppy and a picture? If he was a Prophet then why the hell did he have a picture in the house anyway or allow it to be there? And how the hell can an angel with a divine mission be put off by a puppy? A puppy? You are an angel from God, who has ALL power, so how can a puppy "prevent" you?
Come on!? This does not make sense - that makes Islam look dumb. Why aren't Muslims calling this shit out? All we get are people making stuff up about this hadith not being about the house but about your heart, and the dog represents the lower self, the ego. No, sorry - you're making excuses where you can't. It sounds nice but that's crap. Why not just say that instead of a weird story with silent puppies hiding under cots?
Fifthly, did the Prophet really make appointments with Gabriel? We were always taught that Gabriel gave Muhammad revelation randomly, from Allah, not by appointment. I don't get it.
I don't get it because none of this makes any sense that's why. Either the hadith is a total lie or the Prophet did say those things. Either way, it's not good is it?
Dogs are cool - no God would want anyone not to have a dog. If it does, it can not be God. That sounds more like something an idiot human would want or think up.
I'm trying to my best to so far through my blogs to lay out the path I went down in terms of losing my belief in Islam.
It took a few years and it all started with trying to understand hadith, so that's why I am focusing on it so much at the moment in my current musings.
If you come from a traditional Sunni madhab teaching, life can be fairly strict when it comes to dos and donts. You are told that by following one of the madhabs that you are safe - that the Imams have done all the hard work for us in terms of understanding the hadith and Quran, and translating this into laws, i.e. the Shariah.
From this we have seen the Islamic science of fiqh arise - fiqh (jurisprudence) is obsessed with interpreting Islam to make laws for people to follow.
As a Sunni, you follow the fiqh of a school - Hanafi, Shafi, Hanbali and Maliki. It dictates everything you do from how you pray to how you fast to how you can invest your money.
I was a strict Shafi'i. So strict I even visited his grave in Cairo and asked to be blessed with knowledge of Shafi'i fiqh! Well, that didn't quite work out!
As a result of being a strict Shafi'i I followed what the school of law taught, pretty much to the dot as I believed I was obeying God in doing so. I was told I would not fall foul of false interpretations or falling foul of those who may twist the religion for their own devices, such as the Salafis/Wahabbis (who all tend to be angry so use it for angry means).
Reliance of the Traveller
As a Shafi'i, the book I would always turn to when looking into matters of fiqh was 'Reliance of the Traveller', which is a Shafi'i book of laws by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (with the English translated by Sheikh Nuh Ha Min Keller - now he's someone I would like to blog about as I have spent time with his people in Jordan and the UK).
So in the early days of wanting a dog I turned to this book and this is what I found:
Filth means: 1) urine 2) excrement 3) blood 4) pus 5) vomit 6) wine 7) any liquid intoxicant 8) dogs and pigs and so on.(See page 95 if you have a copy).
At first I just accepted this. I assumed Imam Shafi'i and his school knew what they were doing.
It must be so clear that dogs are bad in Islam and I must be blind for not seeing it. If they are the 8th most filthy thing according to the Shafi'i school then damn!!! That's bad!
Then just to kill off any hopes of ever having a dog a few pages later it states that.... "Something that becomes impure by contact with something from dogs or swine does not become pure except by being washed seven times , one of which must be with purifying earth mixed with purifying water...."
'No chance of me doing that every time I touch a dog,' I thought, so I stopped thinking about getting a dog for a while. But not for long.
This whole dog thing still nagged at me! It made no sense and contradicted reality!
This led me down the rabbit's hole of hadith and Islamic history and the corruption that has become "Islam". Or Sunni Islam at least. Although the Shia are no better.
The Four Madhabs are State Sanctioned Islam
To cut a very long story short, and to condense years of reading into a few sentences, I believe the schools of law, the madhabs, were something the State invented, financed and manipulated. They were an official version of Islam sanctioned by those in power.
You also need to ask yourself what happened to all the other Imams that once had students and could give fatwas and who had their own understandings of Islam. Where did they go? The official line is, "Oh well the other four madhabs were so strong and well reasoned that the others died out over time." Bullshit. They were made to be "unofficial" and were extinguished over time as otherwise we would have their books, etc.
A History of Extinguishing Ideas
And this is a theme of Islam from the very beginning that Muslims look through and really start needing to look at in more detail. Right from the death of Muhammad his followers were infighting, non-stop till today.
Ideas had to constantly be extinguished by those in power in Islam, with some rare exceptions. From the time of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Hassan, the Ummayids, the Abbasids, etc, etc. there are numerous examples of having to fight, kill and try to extinguish and idea or its adherents. For God's sake, they slaughtered the Prophet's Grandson at Karbala!
Wake up! Something has been wrong with Islam from the beginning because it's been controlled by those who want to tell their version of things. The same is just as true today in government and politics. Lots of Sunnis now look to Imam Ghazali as a saviour of Islam yet his works were being burnt at one time. Islam has a long history of burning books, including Quran and Hadith.
Look how splintered Islam is - the Sunni/Shia divide actually hides a much more complex picture of Islam. From the start, the community has been divided as the message was never clear or succinct. It's been made to seem that way by generations afterwards. It's evolved and looks nothing like it ever was or did.
Hadith Have Tied Sunni Islam's Hands Behind its Back
The four schools of law approach of Sunni Islam has basically tied Islam's hands behind its back. The madhabs were established on the back of hadith and Quran. It was all a reaction to what was happening in Islam both within and without. It was the Ahle Hadith who raised the banner of hadith and called Muslims to only stick to them to understand the law. In reaction to this we saw the State support the schools to combat this way of thinking.
The hadith were made to be important - remember, hadith were not used for law making for some 200 years or so after the Prophet's death. It is well documented that many Muslims used reasoning and local customs for their laws rather than hadith. This whole idea of a set religion with clear rules that were handed down from the Prophet is rubbish. The reality is he came with a simple message that in the early days people adopted and life pretty much stayed the same. Over time Islam was turned into a tool of the State and from there we have all the modern day inventions and rituals that have come to be called "Islam". Hadith, and using them as a basis for law, is blatantly a ploy. First you make it orthodox to follow the hadith, then you control which hadith are OK and then you control the people who are able to interpret the hadiths! Sounds very suspicious to me.
The schools of law were a vessel for achieving this aim, in the process also creating a new profession within Islam that has to this day clung to its positions of power and privilege within Muslim societies.
In short, I look on the schools of law as as stupid waste of time. It's a load of nonsense that makes people's lives complicated and distances them from God and from reality. The schools of law passed their stupid laws on dogs because they were all engaged in debates over 'questions of the day'. As they all had to abide by the Sahih hadith of Bukhari, they naturally used the either stupid or fake hadith about dogs in there to justify their positions...then stick to them to prove their scholastic abilities. All the while destroying man's bond with creation. Just stupid.
This is what I mean when I say Sunni Islam has had its hands tied behind its back for so long. Its been forced into this false paradigm of orthodoxy when in fact its anything but orthodox - its fudged.
For generations Muslims now have to abide by the rulings of men made 1,000 years ago? Really?
The Salafi Approach to Hadith
As a madhabi Muslim, and a Sufi at that, I was taught to hate Salafis for their approach to the schools of law. They rejected them as unnecessary. We believed they were crucial in saving the religion from their crazy hands. One of the Salafi's main criticisms of the Imams of fiqh was in their approach to and use of hadith. Now, I never really paid much attention to this in detail as I assumed they were wrong to even dare question the Imams.
So, after 19 years of really being a Salafi-hater, it opened my eyes when I came across a You Tube video of Bilal Philips talking about the fiqh of dogs.
I used to hate this man with a passion. He was everything I did not like in Islam. However, as he was talking about dogs, I had to listen...and if you're a Muslim so should you.
He makes some fantastic points which help start to strip away the layers of nonsense covering hadith and fiqh rulings.
For one, he uses the hadith in which it states that using a dog for hunting and guarding livestock are permissible and applies logic and reason to argue that is must therefore also be possible to keep dogs say if you're blind, or to protect your life. However, he stops at this point as he seems to identify having dogs with "Western culture", whereas in reality all cultures have a deep bond with dogs, even the Arabs pre-Islam.
He shows how this hadith has been completely manipulated by the schools of law and the following scholars to essentially ban people from having dogs other than for obscure reasons.
The next excellent point he makes is regarding the need to ritually cleanse anything a dog has licked, i.e. its saliva being dirty. The hadith itself says that if a dog licks a bowl you wish to eat from, then to purify it. Most Muslims due to this hadith, and the rulings from the madhabs based on this hadith, conclude that if a dog licks literally anything then you have to scrub it 7 times including once with earth. Philips makes a simple point that this hadith only relates to something you eat from - it has nothing to do with a dog licking your foot, your clothing or anything else! So why and how did the Imams of the madhabs not see this?
The reason is that the madhabs have to refer to hadith for law - not logic, reason, custom, common sense, science or anything else. If you are stuck with a load of nonsense from which you have to interpret laws, it's no wonder the laws will also be nonsense.
My view on Salafis has completely changed - I still think they are dangerous crazies, but I respect the fact they have looked at some of these schools of law and some of their teachings and called bullshit on them. However, they don't offer anything better as all they advocate is allowing the layman to use hadith themselves to make up laws, which is what results in Al-Qaeda and its offshoots.
One final point, why the hell would God send mankind a religion that needed mankind to turn to scholars in order to understand it and practice it? It's makes no sense - I find this very idea blasphemous. Everyone can access God directly - there is no intercession needed. Islam, if it is a religion, should be simple - it's been turned into Frankenstein on steroids with a turban on top.
If you follow a madhab, you are the blind following the blind. Seriously, go do some research and listen to some difficult questions. Following a madhab is killing any connection to God.
Hopefully over the coming months/years I will be able to explain in finer detail some of the conclusions I've drawn about hadith.
It's such a massive topic and because it is so central to a Muslim's life, especially if you are a traditional Sunni, it's something the takes time and can't simply be unpicked in one blog post.
Hadith and the Last Revealed Religion
I have many issues with hadith as a result of looking into it all. For one, I never ever questioned how on earth hadith had become such an integral part of the religion when in fact it has no legal basis in the religion. The Quran doesn't say that the lives of all mankind for the rest of eternity should be guided by the sayings of the Prophet, well especially not in the form of hadith literature we have now.
The whole idea of shariah law and therefore how Muslims live their lives and believe what they believe has essentially been decided by some Arab despots over 1,000 years ago who decided they needed to standardise what had become "Islam" in the face of existential threats, i.e. the Shia, Christians, etc.
Basically, Muslims have been hoodwinked into believing that we have to follow the hadith - well, that's bullshit frankly. The Prophet himself it is said even said his sayings should not be written down. But they were...which technically means Muslims were being very naughty...but that's OK because they're good Muslims, doing what's best for us all.
Hadith - Who Controls Them?
Another massive issue I have with hadith now, which I never thought about as a Muslim, is that you are told that unless you know Arabic, have studied Islamic sciences and received permission from a scholar ("ijaza") then you can't approach the hadith - basically, you are not clever enough to read a hadith and know its full meaning(s).
I used to think this made sense because it stops people such as Wahhabis and more literal Muslims taking a hadith and attributing their own meanings to it. But now looking at, basically hadith and the approach to hadith is protected as is any profession in the world and as is any sort of academic science. It's its own little bubble - hadith is untouchable in Islam. It's controlled.
This all makes no sense when you look at Islam at the last revealed religion for all mankind - how is someone speaking Khmer in Cambodia supposed to follow this religion? Well, basically the only way is to believe what someone else has said and how someone else interprets a hadith, which may or may not be the truth.
And this brings me nicely to the topic of this blog and hadith. It is all based on what someone else said.
Hadith - Sayings of the Prophet? or of others?
Let me give you some context - as a Muslim when you are told a hadith it either goes, "The Prophet said...." or "A hadith of the Prophet states....".
Once you start to know a bit more then people may start to use the names of the companion of the Prophet who remembered and conveyed the hadith. For example, "Abu Hurairah narrated that the Prophet said that..."
Basically, it stops there. So when you are learning about Islam, most of the time people either quote the Quran or a hadith. The hadith is always read in the manner I mentioned, which makes you believe that the Prophet actually said those words. My God - you're amazed at the time - amazed at how these words have been preserved for 1,400 years.
If you learn more about Islam and hadith, you start to learn about the chains of narration or "Isnad". These chains are basically said to give a hadith its credentials - the idea being that the people who recall the hadith are all upright, practising Muslims with zero ego or personal intentions in mind.
Once I started to read the hadith about dogs I started to look more into these chains...and what I found really perplexed me. It wasn't what I had imagined and it seemed really quite weak.
The Isnad - Reliable Chains of Transmission
So, let's explore some of these chains to see what I mean. I've simply picked 2 hadith from Sunnah.com's Bukhari collection about "dogs" to illustrate my point.
حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو طَاهِرٍ،
حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ وَهْبٍ، أَخْبَرَنِي يُونُسُ، عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، عَنْ
سَالِمٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، قَالَ سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه
وسلم ـ رَافِعًا صَوْتَهُ يَأْمُرُ بِقَتْلِ الْكِلاَبِ وَكَانَتِ
الْكِلاَبُ تُقْتَلُ إِلاَّ كَلْبَ صَيْدٍ أَوْ مَاشِيَةٍ .
In this hadith in the English version you simply get:
It was
narrated from Salim that his father said:
“I heard the
Messenger of
Allah (ﷺ) raising his voice and commanding that dogs be
killed, and
dogs were killed, except for hunting dogs or dogs kept for
herding
livestock.”
But actually, this is NOT the hadith. This is the end of the hadith. The actual hadith says:
Abu Taher related, that Ibn Wahab related that he heard from Yusuf, who got it from Ibn Shihab, who got it from Salim, who heard his father say, “I heard the
Messenger of
Allah (ﷺ) raising his voice and commanding that dogs be
killed, and
dogs were killed, except for hunting dogs or dogs kept for
herding
livestock.”
Ibrahim bin Musa ar-Razi related he heard Rabi'i bin Nafi Abu Tusa and Ali bin Bahr say they heard Isa say he heard from Ibrahim say he heard from Al-ams, who from Abu Sufyan heard from Jabir bin Abdullah that the Prophet forbade payment for dog and cat.
Hadith are not the words of the Prophet.
Actually, hadith are technically not the words of the Prophet Muhammad - they are the words of whoever the first person in the chain of transmission is - the rest we have to totally put down to faith. You have to trust each and every person in that chain and you have to trust this across thousands of hadith.
Now you need to remember that these hadith were supposedly collected by Bukhari himself. A Persian who became a scholar and then travelled the Arab world to collect hadith and then to sort out the false (some 700,000 apparently) from the true (now the basis of much of Sunni Islam).
So, when you read the hadith above you need to recognise that Bukhari was basically being told a story - in the first hadith by someone called Abu Taher, and in the second by Ibrahim bun Musa ar-Razi. They both then would have told Bukhari what he recorded, i.e. "I heard from so and so that he heard from so and so that he heard that so and so that he heard so and so say that....."
Every single hadith follows this very same pattern. Now it was this that really opened my mind and started the very slow process of unraveling Islam.
Historical Context of Bukhari
There are lots of topics that relate to hadith that really need to be covered in any sort of objective analysis. For one, historical context is for me perhaps THE most crucial of all. Muslims really need to pick up history books to see what was going on at the time in the world at the time of Bukhari.
Fake hadith were rife. On top of that those in power used Islam and especially hadith for their own purposes - i.e. to stay in power with an air of legitimacy. If you believe Bukhari was in some sort of bubble, happily roaming the Arab world collecting hadith with no interference then frankly you need to sit down and re-evaluate yourself. One only needs to look now at how "those who know" such as researchers, scientists and theologians are bought by those with power and an agenda - you seriously think the world was any different 1200 years ago?
Bukhari was on someone's payroll and no matter how pious he may have been, I can not reconcile how this foreigner essentially came to create what has become the second most important book to Muslims - one that controls almost everything they do, say, think or believe.
[Check out Sherif Gaber's video on Bukhari - I don't agree with all he says but I do agree with the vast majority of the conclusions he comes to.]
The Isnad - Protecting the Words of the Prophet?
Anyway, back to the main point of this particular blog - the isnad. As a Muslim I just accepted what I was taught - Bukhari did all the hard work by checking the chains to make sure all was in order. "OK," I thought, "well, they are all Muslims so none of them would lie and surely this is a protected religion so this must be God's way of protecting Islam by keeping it word of mouth and personal."
Now I realise I was being more than a little naive. Again, history really helped me look at the isnad a bit differently.
In short, the whole concept of a reliable chain of transmission is based on the premise that those in the chain are reliable. Well, as a student of history I can safely state that Muslims have, are and will always have among them that lie, cheat, steal and rob from others (as all religions have). Muslims are not some holy tribe of righteous people - it's the same then as it is now and if you believe otherwise, then you have not read any Islamic history and you have also not read the Quran.
Why does the Quran on many occassions warn about those who say they believe yet do not believe??? Why does it specifically warn the Prophet about those around him - i.e. his companions - and not to trust all of them? So if you believe in the Quran, you must also believe that some of the Prophet's companions were liars and cheats.
And they were - you do no have to look far for such stories. There are many companions who although they embraced Islam were never really in it for real - they were not afraid to abuse anything about it, whether it be a hadith or anything else.
Islamic History - Fighting Companions of the Prophet
Some very basic examples from Islamic history should spell out to anyone with an objective intention that Muslims were not some lovey-dovey commune of brothers looking out for one another. They hated each other and they fought each other.
After the death of the Prophet it is known that Ali would not give allegiance to Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr (the 1st Caliph) ordered Umar (who became the 2nd Caliph) to go to Ali's house and demand allegiance from his household. Umar threatened to burn the house down with Fatima (the Prophet's daughter) in it. Fatima actually miscarried as a result of this incident.
So, how on earth is this demonstrating any sense of holiness among the companions of the Prophet? It makes the idea sound stupid!
Years later the companions were killing each other. Uthman was murdered by Muslims fed up with his reign which then along with lots of other reasons led to the Battle of the Camel and then shortly after at the Battle of Siffin - both of which saw Companions killing Companions.
This idea of a golden age of Islam during the time of the companions is a complete myth - a fabricated story with no resemblance to reality. It's fake - it serves a purpose - the [Sunni] state.
How can we rely on hadith then if we know, for sure, that even the first generation of Muslims disagreed, fought and killed each other over what the Prophet said? How then can we possibly trust all those that come after them in the chain of transmission - the isnad?
Well, we can't. If the companions could not be relied on, we can't rely on anyone. Although some hadith very well may be true, and some may be a little bit true, we can't escape the fact that the whole lot it essentially unreliable because they are all based on unreliable people - unreliable people who we have very little knowledge of other than what is recorded in state sanctioned books on hadith science, etc.
Mix the fallible nature of mankind, with the needs of state, power and politics and you have a totally useless basis for any religion. It's full of forgeries, ridiculous stories, half-baked anecdotes and plenty of lies. And to think that much of the Sunni world looks to this for guidance!
Why then?
Hadith were collected at the time they were collected because of what was happening at that time. Whether it was a way of the state controlling what orthodoxy meant, or whether it was a way of mimicking Christian's sayings of Jesus to prove Islam superior, or whatever else - it was shaped by the time and the environment.
If you're Muslim and reading this, ask yourself why hadith collections only appear 200 years after the Prophet - 200 years. Do you have any idea what happened in 1818? I bet you can't name one historical incident yet you are relying on a Persian sitting down in front of over 100,000 people memorising Arabic hadith with their chains of narration and then sorting right from wrong 200 years after they were said?
Isnads are weak - by their very nature they are not something we as people can base our lives on (in this world or the next).
It is these isnads, their agendas and their fake stories that have robbed Muslims across generations from having dogs. They have deprived adherents of a religion (which is supposedly one that is organic, natural and in touch with creation) from one of the very best experiences of being a human being - that of sharing an describable bond with another creation of God.
How can Islam teach that dogs are bad? Well it simply doesn't. Islam essentially tied itself to hadith, making them fundamental to understanding what God wants from us. And when the hadith are basically saying that dogs are bad, Islam has nowhere to go as it would undermine almost all of Islam.
You just need to read some of the hadith about dogs to realise someone somewhere made this shit up for a purpose. Whether it was an anti-Persian/anti-Zoroastrian thing after that part of the world was conquered (they loved dogs) or whether some Caliph at one point needed an excuse to round up and kill all the local wild dogs - who knows? What we do know is that they are fake - no Prophet gets sent to all mankind to tell them not to keep dogs. Why the hell did God create them then?
Basically the hadith on dogs make no sense - they add nothing to life and they contradict life.
Dogs are not the problem - hadith are. Hadith killed the message of the Prophet - that's my conclusion.
As a Muslim something you learn very early is that you don't touch dogs.
You just don't do it.
They're dirty.
If you are like I was and inclined to wonder why Islam considers them dirty, then you'll probably come across all the hadith I mentioned in my first blog (and as a Muslim at that point probably stop any questioning because 'the Prophet clearly said it') and then you'll come across forums, blogs, videos and all sorts of online fatwas essentially saying the same thing in differing shades.
Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of Muslims who see through the whole dog issue, but they aren't many.
The vast majority of practising Muslims stay away from dogs - you believe they are filthy, that you will not be able to read prayers, that angels will leave your side and all sorts.
I came across this video of Dr Zakir Naik who answers the oft asked question, "Why can't Muslims touch dogs?"
Have a watch....then let's think it through and you'll start to see where my issues with what has become to be known as 'Islam' began and why I had to get to grips with hadith literature and the schools of Sunni law (fiqh).
So, as you saw he is asked the question by an audibly shaken and upset young lady who has a dog and is being told it is a sin and that she has even left the fold of Islam!
Firstly, let's give it up for the Doc for at least clarifying that if you have a dog it doesn't make you an unbeliever. Or did he?
Let's look at his answer with regards to not keeping or touch dogs.
He clearly states, and remember people will take his opinion as fact, that keeping a dog other than for hunting or protecting your house (if it lives outside) is not allowed. It is "prohibited".
He could not be clearer could he?
As I really felt quite puzzled about these sorts of answers when I first started thinking about wanting a dog, I asked myself, "based on what though?" What is this no-dogs policy based on? It certainly isn't the Quran which tells us the story of the Sleepers in the Cave and their faithful dog. So, it's based totally on hadith. Hadith such as...
“Whoever keeps a dog, a qiraat from his good deeds will be deducted every day, except a dog for farming or herding livestock.”
Al-Bukhaari (2145) narrated from Abu Hurayrah
...and....
“Whoever keeps a dog that is not a dog for hunting, herding livestock
or farming, two qiraats will be deducted from his reward each day.”
Muslim (2978) narrated from Abu Hurayrah
Wait what?
Yes, both narrated from Abu Huraryrah but one found its way into Bukhari's hadith and the other into Muslim's hadith, but one says a dog owner will be deducted one qiraat and the other two?
Isn't this a complete contradiction?
And furthermore doesn't this show how utterly unreliable hadith are as a source of law? You are taught that the hadith have been trustworthy and reliable but how can this be so when you have such a blatant contradiction?
Some people are able to find excuses and reasoning, but who are they and what do they really know? Look at this as an example from Islam QA.
"And it was said that that at first the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said that one qiraat would be deducted, then the punishment was increased after that, so he said that two qiraats would be deducted in order to put people off from keeping dogs even more." Said by who? Come on seriously? Yet another thing we as Muslims have to rely on in terms of "he said to so and so who said to so and so who said to so and so", just like hadith. I can't accept that any longer. And also this is completely stupid because it would mean people were disobeying the Prophet during his lifetime - and if his companions, followers and the first generation of Muslims did not obey his commands, meaning he had to repeat himself and double punishments, then doesn't that make a mockery of this idea that the first Muslims were somehow righteous and pure and the best of all Muslims?
Also this is just the most basic and simple example of getting rid of the problem of the utter contradiction between the two hadith - the hadith might very well be true but the fact that there are two versions show someone fiddled their numbers (probably upwards) to make the keeping of dog double trouble. But as a 'believer', you believe - you totally believe and accept. It's classic group think.
The real problem this points to are the hadith.
How they were collated, by who, who for, why, when and the almighty mess that Islam has created, especially the Ahle Sunnah (Sunnis), due to this blind following of hadith? It's ruined Islam - it's made it something it never was meant to be.
If you are a Muslim I sincerely plead you to look at hadith collection and look at it objectively, in context, using history, common sense, etc. Do not just accept what you are being told. It's full of holes. It's full on unreliable people. It's full of lies. It has human error written all over it. It's tainted by power and politics. Hadith are a scandal, not in themselves, but for what the scholars and the Ummah have allowed them to become. Anyone can defend any crazy cause now off the back of a hadith - it's designed to be capitalized upon by those in the power, whether at the time of Muawiyah or in current day Saudi Arabia.
Hadith have led Muslims astray!
Dr Naik's answer is a perfect example of this - how can this be Islam, the religion of The Creator of the Universe? If anything Islam has removed human beings from experiencing God's creation and the love that comes with having a dog. Any dog owner will tell you its unique and special and they have been saying this since forever! How does Dr Naik rationalise Islam's stance on dogs? Simple, the hadith say you can only have one for hunting or protection (who the hell keeps cattle and sheep now? or goes hunting?) and on top of that the Prophet also tells us the saliva is dirty. Ah the saliva! Yes of course. And for good measure Dr Naik, a Doctor, adds in some science to prove that dogs saliva can give us diseases such as hydrophobia. Scary shit - no wonder the Prophet said stay away. But real science has shown that actually a dog's mouth is no better or worse than ours - it all comes down to things like diet, cleanliness, etc.
Also ask yourself how many people with dogs you know who have ever caught a disease. He says in the video that if you pet a dog, you do so on the head because the dog's tongue can not reach it. :) Did he make that up on the spot? It's not very intelligent. Anyone who has a dog knows they lick their paws and legs and then run their ears, head and pretty much all over their body. So, it's actually really bad advice if you believe that their saliva is filthy.
So sorry, but this whole saliva thing is bullshit - again it's based on the hadith of a dog licking a vessel and the Prophet saying it should be cleaned with dirt 3 times. Dr Naik again bamboozles his audience by stating that science has shown that nothing cleans off the dog's bacteria more effectively than dirt. Whatever. You think all those Prophets who were shepherds were panicking about all this? I don't. And did you notice the very subtle language he used when discussing the questioner's Muslim credentials? He said "...you have to agree with the Prophet who said it's prohibited to keep dogs because.....", in other words, if she did not believe that the Prophet made this ruling and if she also disagrees with it, she is not a Muslim. Unbelievable.
For those who dont' know, in Islam the rules that make up Sharia law are essentially man-made. Scholars who make the laws essentially draw upon two main sources - the Quran and the Sunnah (the way of the Prophet). The Sunnah is based on hadith - sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Now as a Muslim you are basically taught from day one that Islam is special because we have recordings of what the Prophet said on certain matters and actions he took. We can therefore look to these for inspiration when looking for moral/ethical guidelines. What is even more special, you are taught, is that these sayings were carefully transmitted from generation to generation before finally being captured in books. These hadith collections have come to become the basis on Sunni Islam anyway. Now like any Muslim who was thinking about getting a dog, I looked up hadith on dogs to see what was what. I was really confused by what I read. It seemed to contradict reality. This was the start of a very painful journey of realising that Islam is not all it's made up to be. I will be getting into the nitty gritty of hadith in coming posts - for this one what I wanted to do was illustrate to you how bizarre I found the hadith on dogs to give you some context for my future findings. There are literally hundreds of hadith about dogs, mainly due to slight variations in wording, but here are some of the main ones. It was narrated that Ibn ‘Umar said: “The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) commanded that dogs be killed.” حَدَّثَنَا سُوَيْدُ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ، أَنْبَأَنَا مَالِكُ بْنُ أَنَسٍ، عَنْ نَافِعٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ عُمَرَ، قَالَ أَمَرَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ بِقَتْلِ الْكِلاَبِ . Grade : Sahih (Darussalam) English reference : Vol. 4, Book 28, Hadith 3202 Arabic reference : Book 28, Hadith 3323 Shit! That's pretty strong but then you find a hadith that says.. It was narrated from Salim that his father said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) raising his voice and commanding that dogs be killed, and dogs were killed, except for hunting dogs or dogs kept for herding livestock.” حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو طَاهِرٍ، حَدَّثَنَا ابْنُ وَهْبٍ، أَخْبَرَنِي يُونُسُ، عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، عَنْ سَالِمٍ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، قَالَ سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ رَافِعًا صَوْتَهُ يَأْمُرُ بِقَتْلِ الْكِلاَبِ وَكَانَتِ الْكِلاَبُ تُقْتَلُ إِلاَّ كَلْبَ صَيْدٍ أَوْ مَاشِيَةٍ . Grade : Sahih (Darussalam) English reference : Vol. 4, Book 28, Hadith 3203 Arabic reference : Book 28, Hadith 3324 So, you don't kill useful dogs. Is that really still ok? It was narrated that Abu Hurairah said: “The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘Whoever keeps a dog, one Qirat will be deducted from him (good) deeds every day, except a dog for farming or herding livestock.” حَدَّثَنَا هِشَامُ بْنُ عَمَّارٍ، حَدَّثَنَا الْوَلِيدُ بْنُ مُسْلِمٍ، حَدَّثَنَا الأَوْزَاعِيُّ، حَدَّثَنِي يَحْيَى بْنُ أَبِي كَثِيرٍ، عَنْ أَبِي سَلَمَةَ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ " مَنِ اقْتَنَى كَلْبًا فَإِنَّهُ يَنْقُصُ مِنْ عَمَلِهِ كُلَّ يَوْمٍ قِيرَاطٌ إِلاَّ كَلْبَ حَرْثٍ أَوْ مَاشِيَةٍ " . Grade : Sahih (Darussalam) English reference : Vol. 4, Book 28, Hadith 3204 Arabic reference : Book 28, Hadith 3325 Basically if I keep a dog for love or to save it from pain on the streets, I will be punished? Seriously Ar-rahman Ar-raheem (The Most Merciful The Most Beneficent)? It was narrated from ‘Abdullah bin Mughaffal that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “Were it not that dogs form one of the communities (or nations – of creatures), I would have commanded that they be killed. But kill those that are all black. There are no people who keep a dog, except for dogs used for herding livestock, hunting or farming, but two Qirat will be deducted from their reward each day.” حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو بَكْرِ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا أَحْمَدُ بْنُ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، عَنْ أَبِي شِهَابٍ، حَدَّثَنِي يُونُسُ بْنُ عُبَيْدٍ، عَنِ الْحَسَنِ، عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ مُغَفَّلٍ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ " لَوْلاَ أَنَّ الْكِلاَبَ أُمَّةٌ مِنَ الأُمَمِ لأَمَرْتُ بِقَتْلِهَا فَاقْتُلُوا مِنْهَا الأَسْوَدَ الْبَهِيمَ وَمَا مِنْ قَوْمٍ اتَّخَذُوا كَلْبًا إِلاَّ كَلْبَ مَاشِيَةٍ أَوْ كَلْبَ صَيْدٍ أَوْ كَلْبَ حَرْثٍ إِلاَّ نَقَصَ مِنْ أُجُورِهِمْ كُلَّ يَوْمٍ قِيرَاطَانِ " . Grade : Hasan (Darussalam) English reference : Vol. 4, Book 28, Hadith 3205 Arabic reference : Book 28, Hadith 3326 So now it's because they are a "community" they have the right not to be killed? Wait - black dogs!? WTF? Why black? It was narrated that Abu Dharr said: “I asked the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) about the all-black dog and he said: ‘(It is) a devil.’” حَدَّثَنَا عَمْرُو بْنُ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، حَدَّثَنَا وَكِيعٌ، عَنْ سُلَيْمَانَ بْنِ الْمُغِيرَةِ، عَنْ حُمَيْدِ بْنِ هِلاَلٍ، عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ الصَّامِتِ، عَنْ أَبِي ذَرٍّ، قَالَ سَأَلْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ عَنِ الْكَلْبِ الأَسْوَدِ الْبَهِيمِ فَقَالَ " شَيْطَانٌ " . Grade : Sahih (Darussalam) English reference : Vol. 4, Book 28, Hadith 3210 Arabic reference : Book 28, Hadith 3331 Ah! OK! That makes....what? That makes no sense - come on? The Devil? My dog is black but he'd sit himself if he whiffed the devil let alone be him! Surely there must be some confused reasoning behind all of this? Otherwise this hadith stuff is looking dodgy. It was narrated that Abu Hurairah said: "The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: 'If a dog licks the vessel of any one of you, let him throw (the contents) away and wash it seven times.'" أَخْبَرَنَا عَلِيُّ بْنُ حُجْرٍ، قَالَ أَنْبَأَنَا عَلِيُّ بْنُ مُسْهِرٍ، عَنِ الأَعْمَشِ، عَنْ أَبِي رَزِينٍ، وَأَبِي، صَالِحٍ عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم " إِذَا وَلَغَ الْكَلْبُ فِي إِنَاءِ أَحَدِكُمْ فَلْيُرِقْهُ ثُمَّ لْيَغْسِلْهُ سَبْعَ مَرَّاتٍ " . Grade : Sahih (Darussalam) Reference : Sunan an-Nasa'i 335 In-book reference : Book 2, Hadith 11 English translation : Vol. 1, Book 2, Hadith 336 Now it's making sense! This is where all the stuff about dogs being dirty comes from. So does this explain why the command was to kill them? Was the Prophet protecting people from the possible contamination of dogs? And narrated Hamza bin 'Abdullah: My father said. "During the lifetime of Allah's Apostle, the dogs used to urinate, and pass through the mosques (come and go), nevertheless they never used to sprinkle water on it (urine of the dog.)" وَقَالَ أَحْمَدُ بْنُ شَبِيبٍ حَدَّثَنَا أَبِي، عَنْ يُونُسَ، عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنِي حَمْزَةُ بْنُ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، عَنْ أَبِيهِ، قَالَ كَانَتِ الْكِلاَبُ تَبُولُ وَتُقْبِلُ وَتُدْبِرُ فِي الْمَسْجِدِ فِي زَمَانِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَلَمْ يَكُونُوا يَرُشُّونَ شَيْئًا مِنْ ذَلِكَ. Reference : Sahih al-Bukhari 174 In-book reference : Book 4, Hadith 40 USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 1, Book 4, Hadith 174 Confused again. So a dog licks something, we wash 7 times and rub with dirt but where we pray it can piss and we don't even need to sprinkle some water? What? Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "A man saw a dog eating mud from (the severity of) thirst. So, that man took a shoe (and filled it) with water and kept on pouring the water for the dog till it quenched its thirst. So Allah approved of his deed and made him to enter Paradise." حَدَّثَنَا إِسْحَاقُ، أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ الصَّمَدِ، حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنُ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ دِينَارٍ، سَمِعْتُ أَبِي، عَنْ أَبِي صَالِحٍ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم " أَنَّ رَجُلاً رَأَى كَلْبًا يَأْكُلُ الثَّرَى مِنَ الْعَطَشِ، فَأَخَذَ الرَّجُلُ خُفَّهُ فَجَعَلَ يَغْرِفُ لَهُ بِهِ حَتَّى أَرْوَاهُ، فَشَكَرَ اللَّهُ لَهُ فَأَدْخَلَهُ الْجَنَّةَ ". Reference : Sahih al-Bukhari 173 In-book reference : Book 4, Hadith 39 USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 1, Book 4, Hadith 174 Nice hadith hey? Beautiful. For me the essence of being a human being and "Islam". But looking at all the other hadith I'm starting to ask questions here over what the hell kind of a confused message these hadith are giving me. Narrated Rafi' ibn Khadij: The Prophet (ﷺ) said: "The earnings of a cupper are impure, the price paid for a dog is impure, and the hire paid to a prostitute is impure." حَدَّثَنَا مُوسَى بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ، أَخْبَرَنَا أَبَانُ، عَنْ يَحْيَى، عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ بْنِ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، - يَعْنِي ابْنَ قَارِظٍ - عَنِ السَّائِبِ بْنِ يَزِيدَ، عَنْ رَافِعِ بْنِ خَدِيجٍ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ " كَسْبُ الْحَجَّامِ خَبِيثٌ وَثَمَنُ الْكَلْبِ خَبِيثٌ وَمَهْرُ الْبَغِيِّ خَبِيثٌ " . Grade : Sahih (Al-Albani) صحيح (الألباني) حكم : Reference : Sunan Abi Dawud 3421 In-book reference : Book 24, Hadith 6 English translation : Book 23, Hadith 3414 So selling a dog is the same as paying money to a puta? That's just a ethical quagmire. You can understand why at points I had to stop looking at the details on dogs in Islam - the more I looked the more the thread came away and despite not wanting to pull the thread, I had to keep going back and keep pulling. And now comes one of the big hadith on dogs - one that has caused an almost institutionalized hate of domestic dogs in Islam (which is really what this hadith was fabricated for - to stop Zoroastrians from keeping dogs as pets which they loved). Narrated Abu Talha: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Angels do not enter a house that has either a dog or a picture in it." حَدَّثَنَا عَلِيُّ بْنُ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ، حَدَّثَنَا سُفْيَانُ، قَالَ حَفِظْتُهُ مِنَ الزُّهْرِيِّ كَمَا أَنَّكَ هَا هُنَا أَخْبَرَنِي عُبَيْدُ اللَّهِ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ عَنْ أَبِي طَلْحَةَ ـ رضى الله عنهم ـ عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ " لاَ تَدْخُلُ الْمَلاَئِكَةُ بَيْتًا فِيهِ كَلْبٌ وَلاَ صُورَةٌ ". Reference : Sahih al-Bukhari 3322 In-book reference : Book 59, Hadith 128 USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 4, Book 54, Hadith 539 Yep, Islam has a thing against pictures too..... So this is where it all started - in this confusing mess of holy sayings that make no sense to me at all. The next step was about having the courage to really ask some hard questions around assumptions I had made and truths I had taken for granted around hadith. More to come.
