The jurisprudential status of impurity and keeping dog in Islamic religions

Dog is one of the loyal animals that was used in the past in some jobs. Today, not only its services are vaster and more important, but also intentionally or unintentionally, it exist in some houses. In the present era, dog and its keeping and its adaptation to today's life is one of the challenges in jurisprudence and medical science and dynamic jurisprudence should be able to combine the new life and productivity of this animal with the old jurisprudence, according to the definite principles of Sharia, and provide a solution for interaction with this animal.

The descriptive and analytical present study intends to discuss the subject of dog and its keeping in jurisprudence of the five religions in adaption with medical science data about this animal in order to provide a ruling commensurate with its rights and services with help of religious texts and jurists’ analysis and medical science.

The majority of the Jurists according to texts such as frequent washing the dishes which are in contact with dog’s mouth in a special way and the transmission of some diseases to human, believe in its impurity, and others according to the principle of cleanliness of objects, vaccinations and various medical tests say that it is clean and permitted. It seems that although the keeping of this animal is not encouraged in the Shari'a, ignoring their rights and services is not desirable. Therefore, according to the devotional view of washing the dog's mouth and the literary meaning of the word "beit" in the texts indicating the prohibition of angels entering the room, not the house, as well as medical science data in controlling this animal, we should combine texts prohibiting its keeping with the use of its services and change the limited view of impurity to a wider view and the rule that the dog is not impure and benefit from its services..