Question: At present, many people keep dogs as a hobby. These dogs are bought and sold in the market.
The question is whether it is permissible to do business by selling and buying dogs in this way?
The answer: As the dogs do a good job of guarding and it is legal to keep and buy and sell dogs for guarding, then it would be permissible to buy and sell dogs for guarding needs and for the owner to pay the price.
But Islam does not allow keeping dogs as a hobby or following the foreign fashion. The punishment for that is those people who keep without any needs lose one or two qirats from his hasanat (good deeds) each day. An exception has been made in the case of keeping dogs for hunting, guarding livestock, and guarding crops.
Abu Hurayrah (Ra) narrated that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
‘Abd-Allah ibn ‘Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
“Whoever keeps a dog, except a dog for herding livestock or a dog that is trained for hunting, two qirats will be deducted from his reward each day.”
Narrated by al-Bukhari, 5163; Muslim, 1574
In the other hadith the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said:
So we can say:
- Keeping dogs in Islam is not permissible except for hunting or guarding livestock and crops.
- It is permissible to keep dogs for guarding houses so long as that is outside the city and that there is no other means of guarding the house.
- The Muslim should not imitate others by running with the dog or touching its mouth and kissing it, which causes many diseases.
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