Why some Muslims will do anything to avoid touching a dog
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Female hands holding the head of a very cute Golden Retriever dog.
Does this picture warm your heart or make you fearful? For some Muslims, dogs are a source of trepidation.(Getty: Cirano83)
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Australian travellers returning from overseas barely raise an eyebrow when approached by a sniffer dog at one of our baggage carousels.
Many even smile — after all, dogs are cute!
But as ubiquitous as they've become, for some travellers the canines are a source of trepidation — and I'm not talking about drug traffickers.
For some Muslims, anxiety upon arrival in Australia derives less from a concern about encountering local authorities and more from a deep-seated fear of dogs.
A quarantine detection dog sits by baggage at Sydney airport.
It's not just drug traffickers who might see this and panic.(Getty: Ian Waldie)
Followers of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, mainly found in East Africa and South-East Asia, are taught that dogs are unclean and impure.
If they touch a dog they must wash the area of contact seven times — the first time with dirt and the remaining six times with water.
This ruling is based on a hadith — a second‑hand account of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, which states:
"Cleanse your vase which the dog licked by washing it seven times and the first is with earth (soil)."
If the person fails to do so, their prayers are rendered invalid.
These rules also extend to clothes, dishes and other items with which dogs have contact.
This arduous purification process deters Shafi'i Muslims from having any encounters with dogs, which they have come to view as unclean, aggressive and dangerous.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, stray dogs that roam the streets, and even dogs kept domestically by non-Muslim neighbours, are avoided by Muslims at all costs.
A stray dog lying on a street in Malaysia. Parked cars and a cityscape are seen in the background.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, some Muslims actively avoid areas where dogs are present.(Getty: Darcy Wilson)
Muslim children in these countries tremble upon hearing dogs bark.
Walkers and joggers choose routes that avoid areas where dogs — even placid dogs — are known to congregate.
But not everyone feels this way, and the debate has generated a broader doctrinal dispute about Islamic jurisprudence and the flexibility of religious tradition.
'I want to touch a dog'
Syed Azmi Alhabshi, a Muslim-Malaysian pharmacist, is among the people encouraging more compassion towards dogs.
In 2014, he decided to organise an event called "I Want to Touch a Dog".
Held at a large shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, it attracted more than 800 people, 200 volunteers and dogs of different breed including poodles, golden retrievers and German shepherds.
Two smiling Muslim women pat a dog.
The event attracted more than 800 people, including these women.(Facebook: I Want To Touch A Dog - Kami Boikot 100%)
It was designed to demystify dogs, but the event also exposed its organiser to criticism from doctrinaire Shafi'is and Malaysia's state-backed religious authorities, and even death threats.
Mr Alhabshi eventually spoke at a press conference apologising if he had offended Muslim sensibilities.
"With a sincere heart, my intention to organise this program was because of Allah and not to distort the faith, change religious laws, make fun of ulama (learned men) or encourage liberalism," he said.
The matter did not end there.
In 2017, the Department of Islamic Development of Malaysia (JAKIM) issued a religious ruling reprimanding a Muslim woman for uploading a Facebook post showing pictures of her pet dog Bubu.
JAKIM argued that keeping a pet dog violates the norms of the Shafi'i school and undermines Islam in Malaysia.
A doctrinal dispute
But a number of Muslim scholars and lay intellectuals, including in Malaysia, have questioned the Shafi'i jurisprudence.
They argue that the school's rigidity concerning the status of dogs does not reflect the position of the two other Sunni schools, especially the Maliki school.
One common story appeals to Malaysian history.
In the 1930s, the Crown Prince of the State of Kelantan, then part of British Malaya, wanted to keep a dog but was opposed by his sister.
The local religious authorities, incapable of resolving the family dispute, solicited advice from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, long considered an international authority on Islamic theology.
The clerics there denied any prohibition against dogs, leaving the Sultan to enjoy his companion.
Others rely on more recent rulings from al-Azhar, where the prominent scholar of the Shafi'i school, Ali Gomaa, has also ruled to allow Muslims to keep dogs as pets at home.
According to Sheikh Gomaa, as long as one dedicates a room for prayers that the dog cannot access, the dog's presence in the home is permitted.
The Maliki school, meanwhile, does not treat the animal as impure, and does not impose the purification requirements that the Shafi'i school does upon contact with a dog.
As the debate in Malaysia intensified, Malaysian Muslims actively discussed the subject, including on social media.
The traditionalist camp, led by Malaysia's religious bureaucracy, stated the importance of adhering to only one school of thought.
It emphasised the dangers of legal eclecticism in which Muslims pick and choose from each of the three Sunni schools of jurisprudence at random.
This position was taken in direct opposition to those who pointed to Maliki scholars to justify a more liberal approach to dogs.
The dog debate then in turn generated a broader doctrinal dispute about the extent to which Muslims were required to adhere to one school of thought exclusively.
In 2018, the Mufti of the state of Penang, Dato Wan Salim Wan Mohd Noor, emphasised the importance of benefitting from other schools, and argued that Malaysian worshippers should not consider only the teachings of the Shafi'i school.
"Even though in the Malay world, in Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Thailand, we follow Shafi'i school of thought, this does not prevent us from reaping the benefits from the other schools of thought," he said.
"Truth can be found anywhere and as Muslims, we must be confident because Islam provides solutions to all of humanities problems and that is why we need to have an open mind."
In this way, the conversation — and controversy — around petting dogs is actually about something far bigger.
It shows that Muslims continue to assess what Islam means for them, at times drawing from tradition, and at other times challenging existing traditions.
The debate over Islamic theology and jurisprudence is vibrant in Muslim societies.
Dr Raihan Ismail is a lecturer in the Australian National University's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, and an ABC Top 5 humanities scholar for 2019.
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