# Do I lose good deeds if I keep a dog as a pet?

*Do you lose good deeds by owning a dog? The hygiene reading of the hadith*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/eo90sv4jvho/s/11/
- Date: 2021-01-05 · Kind: question · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #196 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (40:04–48:31)
- Status: latest answer on its topic; general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo90sV4JVHo&t=2404s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/eo90sv4jvho/

**Topics:** Animals and pets; Purification; Hadith in legal reasoning and hadith absolutism

**Question as asked:** Do you think one would lose good deeds by owning a dog for pleasure?

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** No, owning a dog does not cost you reward; he reads the dog hadith as hygiene measures against diseases like rabies, citing Ibn Rushd al-Jadd.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says owning a dog does not make you lose rewards.

**Evidence, his words at 40:53:** “So, you mean can you own a dog? Uh does it impact do you lose rewards? No, you don't.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo90sV4JVHo&t=2453s)

## Longer summary

Asked whether one loses good deeds by owning a dog for pleasure, Mufti Abu Layth says no. He describes reading through Maliki texts on whether life entails purity, and digresses on a famous Maliki work [?] whose author, according to a report some have challenged, was told by his teacher Abu al-Abbas [?] that it was useless to beginners and unnecessary for experts, with which he agrees given its coded style. He repeats his earlier view that the hadith on the dog licking a bowl, on putting dogs down, and on losing reward were about diseases such as rabies. He reads from the Muqaddimat of Ibn Rushd al-Jadd, volume one, page 90, that washing the bowl seven times is a recommendation for hygiene rather than a matter of halal and haram, and says, also citing a discussion in al-Mazari, that the Prophet used religious rhetoric about lost reward and angels not entering to distance people from diseased dogs they were attached to.

## Sources and names cited

- Ibn Rushd al-Jadd
- al-Muqaddimat al-Mumahhidat (Ibn Rushd al-Jadd)
- al-Mudawwana
- al-Mazari
- report: if a dog licks the bowl wash it seven times
- report: whoever keeps a dog loses a qirat of his reward every day
- report: the angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog
- najasa (impurity)
- Maliki school

## Transcript (machine tier, 40:04–48:31)

[40:04] right? So, did I just read the word sex? What's going on? I don't even know. It's like I read what people are writing and I'm thinking what's going on here. Mhm.

[40:29] All right. So, uh, Muy, do you think one would lose good deeds by owning a dog for pleasure? All right. [Laughter] Owning a dog for pleasure.

[40:53] Yeah, you need to really work on your wording. This one legal implications, you know, right? So, you mean can you own a dog? Uh does it impact do you lose rewards? No, you don't. And it's a good thing you uh mentioned this question. I was just taking a look the other day. I was going through uh you know it been a while.

[41:19] I sat down and I started to go through a lot of these uh books. I I don't even know what initially caught my attention. Oh, that's it. I was reading I was taking a look at the by the first volume and um and and he had a and then I started kind of cross referencing it and I started checking what Mazi and then Ro and the Mana and started checking all these different books you know Adilah and um oh sorry Malis and but the it was to do with this topic of uh

[41:56] purity impurity purity animals does life necessitate because according to the school of Medina life necessitates purity and there was a uh reference which I will share with you guys actually um you know by the way on a side note I will state that you know what's popular about this text this is by a great uh Maliki scholar Now you know what's popular is that when he wrote this is just one volume.

[42:33] It's in many volumes. Now what's popular about it is that when he wrote it uh he apparently presented this to one of his teachers Abdul Abbas. Now when Abdul Abbas Kab looked at it he said to him that you know what the hell is this?

[42:55] He said he said he said that if a beginner if somebody who begins you know they this doesn't make any sense to them what you've written and somebody who knows it all anyway doesn't need it and I have to say to and I know some people have challenged that narration and it is in some of the books like Timbuktis and others But I have to say I actually kind of agree with it.

[43:29] You know, having a read of it is incredibly it is written with such complex wording and manner and the style. It's not so much about the words, it's about the style and how he codifies things. They're so confusing. uh he will kind of he has this you know this kind of code of how he lists names and and and it's so it's I'm telling you it just does not make any sense.

[44:03] It only makes sense if you know it already, which refers back to the point of alab saying, well, you know, a person who already knows it doesn't need it. But anyway, there was a point here that I had spoken previously. I've got a video about can you own a pet? And I've said yes. And I've answered previously that the hadith about the dog licking a bowl or and all these hadith about putting down the dogs or about dogs making you lack in rewards and stuff like this.

[44:36] All of this was to do with a disease like rabies and these kind of uh illnesses that certain dogs had at the time. And the prophet was trying to distance the people. Now this is the mukimat of aljud. Now he does mention here this is his kind of u the madimat is a book it's this one is in three volumes by and it's basically a summary it's meant to be his interpretative summary of the mudaba.

[45:14] Whether that stands true or not is subject to debate, but that's what it is. Rush Aljud, the the granddaddy. Now, his his personality is not something I normally gel with from all the scholars, but he's a he's is a bit more of the the kind of strict type, but here is the reference. Now, somebody had asked me that where do you get this from? And I had read it and I was trying to recall the reference previously and I was uh I think I did show a particular reference from Mazeri but here is one from uh

[45:49] where he has it comes in his uh in this particular it's on page 90 of volume one and it's under the section of to do with water and he mentions He says what I say about this matter about why you have to clean the bowl seven times says

[46:20] and he mentions that this is you know this is not something religious like a halal haram issue this is a recommendation but why and he's going to go on to explain because of hygiene he says So this is a quote here.

[46:51] He says that the dog is uh kebib. So you have which um or which is a disease and the point is that because those dogs were diseased and what the harm they could have caused. This is why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was distancing people from them. And then there is a debate. He does also discuss it mazari discusses it as well in his of the is it possible that the prophet commanded something and the companions weren't

[47:28] immediately implementing it. So but the point here is that because of the affection the affinity that some people had with dogs uh the they weren't fully abiding. So maybe they had stopped in some things but the dogs were still at home they were still doing things. So the prophet then said oh well anybody who has a dog at home they lose this much reward or anybody who has a dog at home if the dog licks your bowl this the reward element when or an angel will not even enter.

[48:02] The religious rhetoric is just to create a distance in their hearts so they can uh remove these dogs from their homes because of the disease that that that these dogs carried. Okay. So I hope that now helps. Uh Razam, you're doing it much love for the super chat. You mentioned Bkari a little uh just lost his super chat.

[48:30] There it is. A little a while ago in a previous video, you cited a hadith the prophet entering the home of a woman who refused his advance. But does the fact that the hadith is in the book of tal means she was his wife? Now mahab that's a good question. Now I do mention that in my bkari gate video that there is a lot of confusion. So that chapter has three hadith in it.

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment eo90sV4JVHo/s/11. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/eo90sv4jvho/s/11/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.