“Friendship with dogs is a blind imitation of the West. There are lots of people in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children.”
That may be true. And so therefore, as far as the Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi is concerned, no one in Iran can have a dog as a pet.
There’s Islamic supremacist logic for you.
Sharia Alert from the Misunderstanders of Islam Republic of Iran: “Iran cleric says dogs ‘unclean’ and not to be kept as pets,” by Robin Pomeroy for Reuters, June 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):
TEHRAN (Reuters) – A senior Iranian cleric has decreed dogs are “unclean” and should not be kept as pets — a move aimed at discouraging Western-style dog ownership in the Islamic state, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
Dogs are considered “unclean” under Islamic tradition but, while relatively rare in Iran, some people do keep them as pets.
By issuing a fatwa — a religious ruling — Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi has sent a clear message that this trend must stop.
“Friendship with dogs is a blind imitation of the West,” he was quoted as saying in Javan daily. “There are lots of people in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children.”
Guard dogs and sheep dogs are considered acceptable under Islamic law but Iranians who carry dogs in their cars or take them to public parks can be stopped by police and fined.
The Koran does not explicitly prohibit contact with dogs, Shirazi said, but Islamic tradition showed it to be so. “We have lots of narrations in Islam that say dogs are unclean.”…
“Once Gabriel promised the Prophet (that he would visit him, but Gabriel did not come) and later on he said, ‘We, angels, do not enter a house which contains a picture or a dog.'” — Bukhari volume 4, book 54, number 450
“Abdullah (b. Umar) (Allah be pleased with them) reported: Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and we would send (men) in Medina and its corners and we did not spare any dog that we did not kill, so much so that we killed the dog that accompanied the wet she-camel belonging to the people of the desert.” — Muslim book 10, number 3811