Man's best friend recognized as good mates

TMI in its article ‘I want to touch a dog’ event a big hit with Muslims reported:

TMI photo

Siti Sakinah Meor Omar Baki has been afraid of dogs all her life. Not only that, she was told that touching dogs is not allowed in Islam. That was the mentality and teaching instilled in her by her conventional family.

But today, Siti Sakinah, along with her four children, turned up at Central Park in Bandar Utama, Selangor, to participate in the "I want to touch a dog" event to overcome her fear.

"It is also to show that touching a dog is not haram. People are worried about touching the dogs more as it’s a sin instead of worrying about the biggest sins," said Siti Sakinah, a former religious teacher who currently works with an NGO.

She said her husband, an ustaz, gave her the permission to attend today's event.

"I wanted to jump for joy when he said 'yes' and I told my children they had to go. And all of them came today with me to overcome their fear and to learn that dogs are also creatures created by Allah that need love and care," said Siti Sakinah, who touched and petted a few dogs at the event.

"I am still scared of big dogs so I am touching the small ones first," she said gleefully.

Siti Sakinah and her children were among the many families who turned up at the event which was attended by more than 1,000 people.

The organiser of the event, Syed Azmi Alhabshi, said he was satisfied with the turnout.

"We only expected 60 but this is way more than 60. This is overwhelming and I hope I provided enough water for the dogs and apologise for any shortcomings," he said.

Syed Alhabshi expected 60 people but WoW, more than 1000 turned up.

wish I had been that lucky dog, wakakaka

The real gain is that Muslims are no longer prepared to believe what those false prophets or people who misused the good name of the Prophet (pbuh) said. Read this article about dogs (reproduced below) from the website of True Islam which claims its teachings are derived from the Quran.

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"You would think they were awake, when they were in fact asleep. We turned them to the right side and the left side, while their dog stretched his arms in their midst" - 18:18

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Dogs

Are they dirty, prohibited animals?

It is traditional among Muslims all over the world to regard the dog as a dirty animal that when touched would void the wudu (ablution) and infect the one who touched it with "nagasah" (dirty impurity)!

Sadly, this concept comes from fabricated hadith which claims that the Prophet ordered the killing of dogs and gave numerous hadith that prohibit the keeping of dogs except for hunting and guarding, due to their dirty status!

However, by studying the Quran we find no such truth. No where in the Quran are dogs prohibited, nor is there any mention of any contaminating effect of these lovely animals who are man's best friend. Consequently, we must dismiss all these hadith that fabricate lies against the Prophet.

1- God tells us in the Quran about the story of the dwellers of the Cave (Surah 18). In verse 13 God tells us that they were good believers and that God guided them. In verse 18 God tells us that they had their dog with them.

Now if dogs are prohibited and dirty, would God speak of those dwellers of the Cave (who had a dog) as good believers?

2- In 5:4 God tells us that it is okay to eat what the trained dogs catch (dogs are used in hunting). Now if the dog is an animal which causes contamination by mere touch, would God tell us it is perfectly okay to eat what the dog catches with his mouth (let alone just touch the dog)?

3- The Quran contains a very important rule for all believers, and the rule is:

Nothing is haram (unlawful) unless it is prohibited by God Himself, and since God describes the Quran as complete, perfect and fully detailed, thus all the prohibitions decreed by God are found in the Quran. The following Quranic verses confirm this truth:

Say, "Who prohibited the nice things God has created for His creatures, and the good provisions?" 

Say, "Such provisions are to be enjoyed in this life by those who believe. Moreover, the good provisions will be exclusively theirs on the Day of Resurrection." We thus explain the revelations for people who know.” - 7:32

“Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed?” - 6:114 

“You shall not utter lies with your own tongues stating: "This is halal (lawful), and this is haram (unlawful)," to fabricate lies and attribute them to God. Surely, those who fabricate lies and attribute them to God will never succeed.” - 16:116

There is not one verse in the Quran where God says that dogs are dirty or that they are prohibited to keep.

4- Is it logical that God would create an animal to be man's best friend and serve him in many ways, and then prohibit such an animal?

5- If this is what the Quran has to tell us about the issue of dogs, then where does all the prohibition come from? Where do the claims that dogs are dirty animals which if touched would void our ablution and render us impure come from? As most other corruptions which have crept into Islam, the source is always the fabricated hadith which are falsely attributed to prophet Muhammad!

Hadith tell us that the Prophet prohibited the keeping of dogs as pets. Other hadith tell us that angels won't enter a room where there is a dog. Other hadith tell us that if we touch a dog our ablution is void and we become impure, and that we have to wash seven times to clean this impurity, the final time in dust. That seems inconsistent with the Quran saying you may eat what they catch for you! Some other hadith go even beyond that to say that we must kill all black dogs!

The following are some examples:

Malik's Muwatta, Book 54, Number 54.5.13:

"Malik related from Nafi from Abdullah Ibn Umar that the Messenger of God ordered all dogs (other than sheepdogs or hunting dogs) to be killed".

Ibn Hanbal's collection: The Messenger of God said: "You shall kill all black dogs, because they are devils."

The question is: Did the Prophet really issue these prohibitions? In addition, did the Prophet have the authority to issue these prohibitions?

The answer is given in the Quran:

"O you prophet, why do you prohibit what God has made lawful in order to please your wives? God is Forgiver Merciful" 66:1

Obviously God did not include the words in 66:1 in the Quran to belittle the Prophet in our eyes, but these words are placed in the Quran in order to confirm to all believers across all time that the Messenger of God does not have the authority to prohibit anything which is not prohibited by God. God is the only Law Maker (6:114) and the only duty of the messenger is to deliver God's message (5:92).

The outcome of all the above is that we must discard all the lies attributed to the prophet regarding  prohibiting dogs and be focused on the Quran as the only source of guidance and religious law.

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Kassim Ahmad has been right all along that the 'priesthood caste or ulama have become 'dictators' of the Muslim's understanding of his Islam. He had stated: "This class of priests control the interpretation of religion to the masses. They are dictators. There is no freedom."

As reported by TMI, He riled up Muslims on both sides of the divide when he questioned the use of hadith to interpret the Quran, and described the Prophet as "just a messenger of Allah".

In his lecture titled "The Nation's Direction in the Next Thirty Years", Kassim also questioned the hijab (Islamic headscarf) worn by Muslim women, saying that "the hair is not part of the aurat" (parts of the body which need to be covered according to Islamic teachings).

We have also heard (from TMI):

Dr Syed Farid Alatas, an associate professor at the Sociology Department, National University of Singapore, expressed disbelief over the recent proposal by Kelantan to impose jail term and fine on Muslim men who miss Friday prayers for three consecutive weeks.

"I read that the Kelantan state government intended to fine Muslim men RM1,000 and sentence them to a year's jail if they skipped Friday prayers three times in a row.

"While I agree that society needs rules and regulations, it is immoral and unethical to propose such drastic action on those who do not perform Friday prayers regularly.

"There is an imbalance here as respect for the sanctity of personal life has been completely disregarded. This is bordering on coercion without taking civil liberties into account."

There is this obsessive need by clerics to bully and threaten people so the ulama can hold on to unchallenged power.

See my earlier post Theocratic 3 P's - prohibit, persecute & punish.

TMI also reported: Syed Farid cited another example of a controversial fatwa issued by a former Saudi Arabian grand mufti that the sun orbited the earth instead of vice versa.

The fatwa was issued in 1966 by the late Sheikh Abdul Aziz Abdullah, who claimed that the sun orbited the earth, as the earth was fixed and stable.

My God (sorry, I can't use the 'A' word) or by Jove (Jove or Jupiter was the Roman God), a fatwa on heliocentrism in 1966!?!

This moronic stupidity was exactly what had caused Galileo Gallilei to be charged for heresy more than 300 years ago, in 1633.

Then, Galileo Galilei got into a whole lot of trouble with the Catholic 'priesthood caste', wakakaka, for saying the exact scientific truth, that our Earth moved around the Sun. He was charged for heresy and placed under house arrest for life (yes, for life) because his scientific statement had questioned the teachings of the Holy Scriptures which emphasized on the 'centrality' of Earth in the universe.

What upset the church was Copernicus' theory of Heliocentrism (Sun as the central body in our solar system with Earth orbiting it) conflicting with or threatening the biblical story of the Battle of Gideon as narrated in the Book of Joshua.

where Amorites were when Israelites invaded their country

About one and one-half thousand years before Yehoshua ben Yosef was born (hope you Christians know who he was, wakakaka), the Israelite army led by Joshua in their invasion of Canaan was winning their battle against the native Amorites, but their enemies were likely to escape once daylight gave way to nightfall.

So, according to the bible (written of course by Joshua's descendants, wakakaka) Joshua prayed to YHWH and caused the sun and the moon to stand still in order for the Israelites to finish off their slaughter of the natives in broad daylight (excuse the pun, wakakaka).

Joshua causing the sun to stay still so the Israelite army could continue their genocidal slaughter of the natives of the land Israelites were invading

The bible claims YHWH was the Creator, but alas, like an unfair parent who favoured one child over another, YHWH even gave the Israelites a hand with his heavenly artillery, raining hailstones on the natives of the land (supposedly also his creation), an act not unlike the usual massive USAF bombardment of a country prior to an American military invasion.

The Bible in Joshua 10: 11 -14 (KJV) tells us:

And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. 

Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. 

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. 

And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.

Joshua and men slaughtering the Amorites with YHWH's help

Amen. But that Saudi Arabian grand mufti memang ta'boleh harap dan ta'boleh dipercayai. Pordah to his 'priesthood caste'.

And Wikipedia tells us:

The historian William Montgomery Watt states that Muhammad's kindness to animals was remarkable given the social context of his upbringing.

He cites an instance of Muhammed, while traveling with his army to Mecca in 630 CE, posting sentries to ensure that a female dog and her newborn puppies were not disturbed.

On the other hand, in a tradition found in the Sunni hadith book al-Muwatta, Muhammad is reported as saying that the company of dogs voids a portion of a Muslim’s good deeds. However, in "two separate narrations by Abu Hurayrah, the Prophet told his companions of the virtue of saving the life of a dog by giving it water and quenching its thirst. 

One story referred to a man who was blessed by Allah for giving water to a thirsty dog, the other was a prostitute who filled her shoe with water and gave it to a dog, who had its tongue lolling out from thirst. For this deed she was granted the ultimate reward, the eternal Paradise under which rivers flow, to live therein forever."

According to a Sunni narration classified as authentic by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, black dogs are a manifestation of evil in animal form; Khaled Abou El Fadl states that the majority of scholars regard this to be "pre-Islamic Arab mythology" and "a tradition to be falsely attributed to the Prophet".

Thus, according to Khaled Abou El Fadl, for a Muslim to believe black dogs are a manifestation of evil in animal form is in fact to believe in pre-Islamic Arab mythology, and to indulge in jahiliyyah.