"QUESTION ASKED OF MALIKA AYUB:
Dogs in the Quran: Aren't they dirty?
HIS ANSWER:
I heard this from a Muslim friend. So I told him to read the Quran and find what the Quran says about dogs.
It is interesting to know that dogs are mentioned in the Quran five times, not just once, 7:176, 18:18, 18:22 (three times).
Nowhere does God call the dogs dirty animals or give any indication that they should be avoided or treated the way many Muslims think they should. Actually the story of the people of the cave, in Sura 18, gives the indication that we should appreciate.
The people of the cave, 3, 5 or 7 were mentioned in the Quran and every time God insists on letting us know that their dog was there with them. Their story can be as complete without mention of the dog, but God did [mention it]. Why?
God is telling us these righteous people were in the cave with their dog. If it is not righteous to have dogs, God would not have told us that story in which the dog has to be remembered as being there. We have to know the quality of God if we were to worship Him correctly. When God says something He means it. If God did not curse the dog and call it all kinds of names, it is because God wants us to know that He created that beautiful creature and He expected us to make all use and companinonship with that animal that accompanied these righteous people of the cave.
Fabricated hadiths contradict the Quran. Many of them are narrated by Abu Hurayra. Abu Hurayra, whose name is translated as , ""father of the little cat,"" hated dogs and women. From his mouth came many hadiths that insulted women and cursed the dogs and make them undesirable animals that need to be avoided and in other hadiths killed.
These fabricted hadtihs were falsely attributed to the prophet Muhammed who cannot utter but the teachings of the Quran and would only be a living example of the Quran itself. The prophet Muhammed who lived by the Quran could not have done anything but agree with the Quran, not contradict it. God gave us a great criteria to judge His truth from the man-made fabrications.
________
The source of the above? Google. Found there just as you wanted and challenged me to do. So, Anonymous Bob of the Middle Ages, here's a tip of my helmet to you for your admirable self-effacement, your admirable, although wholly justified, self-debasement, and your admirable humility in goading me to hold this up to you even though you knew it would subject you to further and justified ridicule."
news flash! dogs not dirty in islam. read it here!
This has nothing to do with cycling. Get this off the board, or ask the mods to start a non-cycling discussion forum. What an embarrassment.
Internet?
Your Pal,
Etoain Shrdlu
And Islam is monolithic, just like Christianity and Judaism, right?
"I am reading ""The Places in Between"" by Rory Stewart, about his adventures walking across Afghanistan in winter of 2002. He is given a dog along the way, and many times has difficulty finding shelter for the dog, because ""he was considered unclean.""
This is a guy who spent long periods of time in Iran, Pakistan, Nepal and India, and speaks Dari and/or Pashto. So he knows local Islamic culture. He makes repeated references to dogs' being considered unclean and that people don't keep them as pets."
Richard, I don't know whether this view was a strictly religious thing or a cultural thing (he was out in the sticks, among people who were really, really poor). I never said the Koran, or your quotation of it, was wrong.
PLee is, of course, correct that the same religion is practiced in different ways depending on the interpretations of it from within its own very wise, very learned, very scholarly priesthood. He implies, for example the differences between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism--at least I think he does. Shiites and Sunnis are both Muslims. Catholics and Mormons are both Christians.
The parting of the Red Sea is a miracle. Giving virgin birth is a miracle. Turning water into wine is a miracle. Walking on water is a miracle. Turning a stick into a snake is a miracle. All those are subject to interpretation by non-literalists.
Having a dog as a valued companion, as god states in the Koran/Quran, is not a miracle. It does not require belief in a miracle. It does not need interpretation.
____
Question for BMV: According to (some form[s]) of Islam and Judaism, you may not depict man. Is the City of New York in violation of your First Amendment right in that it gives money to the public library and the Metropolitan Museum?
"Who is Richard Rosenthal, a self-proclaimed atheist, to analyze religion for us?
And who is Malika Ayub, his authoritative source on Islam? This is where Richard got his information:
http://www.submission.org/pets/dogs2.html
Richard's original post contained this line from the link above which he subsequently edited out:
""NO WHERE does God call the dogs dirty animals or give any indication that they should be avoided or treated the way many Muslims think they should.""
That's no different than saying ""Jews are mistaken in their belief that ...""
Richard and his source are both insulting us by telling us how we should practice our religions.
Besides which, this thread is totally unrelated to cycling. It was disingenuous of Richard to start a new thread. The original thread was about dogs and cycling. This thread is about religion. The rules of the Message Board require it's removal:
http://www.nycc.org/mb/rules.shtml
Where are the webmasters, censors and web elves when you need them?"
I would immagine that they were probably out walking their dogs !!
I hope they're on a leash.
they were ,but no one was holding it. which reminds me of the case of the woman in the park who was walking 7 or 8 dogs together ,all on leashes , she recieved a summons for unleashed dogs ..when she went to court the Judge threw out the case declaring that nowhere in the law does it say you must hold onto the leash ..the leash had to be on the dog ,not in your hand !!!
"Jeff wrote, above:
Richard's original post contained this line from the link above which he subsequently edited out:
""NO WHERE does God call the dogs dirty animals or give any indication that they should be avoided or treated the way many Muslims think they should.""
_____________________________________________________________
Scroll up to my post and read what it says in the third line—as it has since I first posted it:
""Nowhere does God call the dogs dirty animals or give any indication that they should be avoided or treated the way many Muslims think they should.""
Hell, that was the core of my post. It would have made no sense without it.
It is disappointing to write with some care and precision only to be read carelessly and inattentively. I write ""black"" and Jeff says I wrote ""white."" Jeff writes I am tellling people how to practice their religions. The exact opposite is true. I wrote in this thread:
""PLee is, of course, correct that the same religion is practiced in different ways depending on the interpretations of it from within its own very wise, very learned, very scholarly priesthood. He implies, for example the differences between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism--at least I think he does. Shiites and Sunnis are both Muslims. Catholics and Mormons are both Christians.""
That's me, not PLee, citing differences in Jewish, Muslim, and Chrisitan practice. That's me, not PLee, referring to different interpretations within the same religion. That's me, not PLee referring to the clergy of each as wise, learned, and scholarly.
Now, then, tell me how, I, in respectfully acknowledging the diversity of beliefs and practices within religions, am prescribing THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE WAY to believe and to practice them (and I know it). Reconcile what I wrote with Jeff's writing ""Richard (is) insulting us by telling us how we should practice our religions.""
Here's how backward is your reading: far from my believing there is but one way of practicing or understanding a religion, it should be obvious to the careful, attentive reader I believe in absolute freedom of thought and practice. My god, man, if I stand for anything at all it is freedom of thought and expression: what do I stand for more than that in all I've written on the board?
It is Bob of Middle Village who writes the park must accomodate the belief of one segment of Muslims at the expense of others by forbidding conduct that is agreeable to other Muslims: if I may conflate a mere visit to the park with religious practice (as he does), he is the one who objects to diversity of religious practice under the color of the government's supposedly violating the freedom of religion.
I believe some (or all?) orthodox Jews believe a woman is unclean during her menstruation and is not to be in the company of men (presumably outside her family). Should women be banned from the park during their menstruation? I don't think so because I believe in accomodating a diversity of religious thought and practice in spite of what Jeff thinks.
Jeff calls me ""a self-proclaimed atheist."" Uh, yeah. Is there someone better than me to state I am? Is there someone who knows what I believe and think better than I do who should be the arbiter and definer of my convictions about religion? Would it somehow remove the stain of my being an atheist if someone other than me called me that?
As for my creating a new thread here, I sought to append my posts here, in this thread, to that other 50+ thread. (Note: I am not the one who introduced religion into that other thread in which I was maligned.) When I went to do that, the ""post a new message to this thread"" was greyed out, i.e. inactive. One of the people who works on our Web site knows from my having written him a few days before there was no ""edit"" available to me in a different thread when I sought to edit what I had posted. And my not"
That passage you took off the Internet is nothing but interpretation, implication and inference. The Quran mentions righteous people in a cave with dogs.
From that, the writer makes the argument that dogs must be acceptable. What is that if not an interpretation or inference?
PLEE (homonym with plea)
I've been chastised here for creating a thread that is about religion and has nothing to do with cycling. If you will e-mail me, I'll be very, very pleased to answer you. If you feel the peculiar need to maintain your e-anonymity, telephone me at (212) 371-4700 between 8AM and 10PM. I don't have caller I.D. so I won't grab your phone number; however, if you disbelieve me, call me from a pay phone or some phone other than yours.
If you haven't done this by 10AM Friday, I'll reply to you here, with you having to bear the peevishness of him who chastised me.
Thanks for the offer, Rich, but no need to bother. I honestly don't think it would be productive use of either your time or my time. And the other posters are right, we shouldn't be using NYCC resources on purely non-cycling topics.
Ciao.
Maybe they thought Rory was unclean and were just being polite by blaming the dog.
