Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com
3/11/2008
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch.
FP: Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Spencer: Thank you, Jamie. Always a pleasure.
FP: An Iranian man was recently sentenced to 4 months in jail and 30 lashes for walking his dog in Shahr Rey, a suburb of Tehran. What is going on here exactly?
Spencer: Well, I’ll let the renowned moderate Ayatollah Sistani say it. On his website, he explains that there are ten things that are essentially unclean for Shi’ite Muslims. These are urine, feces, semen, dead bodies, blood, pigs, alcoholic liquors, the sweat of an animal that habitually eats unclean things, unbelievers, and – dogs. Thus a man who walks his dog in a public place, where people might come in contact with it, is liable to render them unclean. That’s why the Iranian authorities have come down so hard on this man: he is compromising the ritual purity of the populace.
FP: On a serious note, who cares if something is unclean or impure? Why does this matter so much? So something might not be clean or pure, so what?
Spencer: Well, if a Muslim comes into contact with an unclean thing, he becomes unclean himself, and must take a ritual bath before attending daily prayers or performing other religious duties. Aside from the nuisance aspect of this, there is a general distaste attached to the idea of ritual impurity in general, and a contempt for the things that can trigger it.
FP: What’s going on with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taking possession of four guard dogs? How does this fit?
Spencer: While dogs are generally considered unclean by both Sunnis and Shi’ites, and keeping them as pets is generally frowned upon, contact with them is not absolutely forbidden. Islamic jurists have allowed for the keeping of hunting dogs, as well as guard dogs and dogs that are useful in other ways. The idea of a dog as a companion is considered ridiculous and unclean, but a dog may be used for various purposes.
Consequently there is really no contradiction between Ahmadinejad’s guard dogs and the punishment given to this man who was walking his dogs. This is not a matter of presidential privilege or the perks of the elite; it is most likely that the man was keeping the dog as a pet and was punished for that, while since Ahmadinejad’s dogs are not pets but serve a specified utilitarian purpose, they do not fall into the same category.
FP: What is the basis for the prohibition. Is it in the Qur'an? In Muhammad's life?
Spencer: It comes from Muhammad’s statements in the hadith collections that Muslims generally consider most reliable. The basis of the idea of impurity of dogs comes from his statements such as: “Angels do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or a picture of a living creature,” (Bukhari 4.54.448), “Prayer is annulled by a dog, a donkey and a woman (if they pass in front of the praying people)” (Bukhari 1.9.490), and “If a dog drinks from the utensil of anyone of you it is essential to wash it seven times” (Bukhari 1.4.173). He declared: “Whoever keeps a dog, one Qirat of the reward of his good deeds is deducted daily, unless the dog is used for guarding a farm or cattle” – or, in some variants of this “guarding sheep or farms” – or, presumably, Iranian Presidents -- “or for hunting” (Bukhari 3.39.515).
There are ahadith also depicting Muhammad as saying, “Were dogs not a species of creature I should command that they all be killed; but kill every pure black one” (Sunan Abu Dawud 16.2839). Another notes that Muhammad “ordered the killing of dogs,” again making an exception for “the keeping of dogs for hunting and (the protection of) herds” (Muslim 10.3814).
FP: How are dogs treated in Sunni Islam? Can you tell some stories of abuse?
Spencer: Sunni Islam also regards dogs as unclean. The Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence stipulates 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 (recommended not to be the last) must be with purifying earth” (‘Umdat al-Salik e14.7). At one Sunni website a mufti evaluates the ahadith about dogs and concludes: “In the light of these Ahaadith and other narrations it is not permissible to keep dogs as pets. The household is deprived of the Mercy of Allah Taãla.”
Stories of abuse, however, are hard to come by, because this is simply not a problem that generally registers in Islamic countries.
FP: How about the treatment of other animals in Islamic countries?
Spencer: No other Muslim country is as uptight about dogs as Iran. Even there, pet ownership is widespread, as the crackdown itself has revealed. Only the hardest of hardliners take action against it. The Iranian example does, however, demonstrate that that kind of crackdown can and does occur.
FP: Where are all the animal rights activists on this issue? I have never seen and heard of one demonstration.
Spencer: Jamie, I doubt that groups like PETA are even aware of this as an issue.
FP: But let’s talk about the silence of animal rights activists on this issue. You would think they would be up in arms about such atrocious abuse of animals and the morbid ideology that rests at its foundation. There appears to be a direct connection here to the silence, for example, of leftists in general to the terror and oppression that is perpetrated by Islam. Can you give us an interpretation of the silence of Western groups on issues like this? It’s very much connected to the hatred of one’s own society isn’t it?
Spencer: Yes, Jamie, I believe it is. These groups are filled with people who have been educated to hate their own culture and never to pass judgment on any abuses in any non-Western, non-Christian culture. They lack even the basic conceptual apparatus to conceive of a situation in which non-Western, non-Christian people could be anything but victims.
FP: Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.
Spencer: Thank you, Jamie.
Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles
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