Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

No Islamic Fido

A group of 39 Iranian legislators want dogs and their owners arrested.

Dogs? Iran clerics, legislators growl at the thought
Dogs are “unclean” and should be banned from society. That is what 39 Iranian legislators have proposed to the country’s 290-member parliament, known as the Majlis…

First-time offenders will be fined five million riyals (approximately $4800); they will be given 10 days to get rid of the dog…

The campaign against dogs isn’t new, however. In June 2010, Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi sent a message that the practice of keeping dogs as domestic pets must stop. He issued a fatwa (religious edict) stating that “Friendship with dogs is a blind imitation of the West.” The Grand Ayatollah added: “There are lots of people in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children.” He did not elaborate on that statement.

He acknowledged, however, that the Quran does not explicitly prohibit contact with dogs. Rather, the Grand Ayatollah said, such forbidding of contact with dogs was in keeping with Islamic tradition. “We have lots of narrations in Islam that say dogs are unclean,” he said…

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