Abstract
Guide dogs enhance mobility and psychosocial participation for people who are blind, yet their use in Muslim-majority and minority settings remains contested because some hadith-based interpretations link dogs to ritual impurity and spiritual concerns, producing stigma and access disputes. We conducted qualitative, interpretive textual analysis of Qur’anic passages referencing dogs, 14 core hadith narrations, classical fiqh positions across the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali schools, and 21 contemporary fatwas on guide dogs (through April 2025). Sources were coded thematically (purity, worship, utility, necessity, welfare) and interpreted through a maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (objectives of Islamic law) lens emphasizing ḍarūra (necessity) and maṣlaḥa (public welfare), supplemented by illustrative media-documented access controversies. Qur’anic evidence portrays dogs neutrally to positively and affirms trained-animal utility by analogy. Hadith evidence is mixed, combining mercy and practical-use reports with context-sensitive purity and public-safety narrations. While schools differ on impurity status, all permit dogs for recognized needs. Contamporary fatwas largely endorse guide dogs: 20/21 allow use, typically with manageable hygiene and mosque-space protocols. Islamic legal reasoning strongly supports guide dogs as permissible assistive partners when grounded in necessity and welfare; persistent exclusions are primarily social and institutional, suggesting the value of clearer guidance and accommodations.
Introduction
Visual impairment refers to a significant loss of vision that cannot be corrected by standard glasses, contact lenses, or surgery and ranges from moderate loss to total blindness. It is a major global health and social issue: more than 2.2 billion people live with vision impairment, at least 1 billion cases are preventable or remain unaddressed, around 43 million people are blind, and approximately 295 million have moderate to severe impairment (World Health Organization [WHO] 2023). With increasing life expectancy and advances in neonatal care, more individuals—including premature infants—now survive with complex conditions that include visual impairment. Aging is the leading cause of vision loss in high-income countries, and most individuals will experience some degree of vision loss if they live long enough (WHO 2023). Broader structural pressures such as conflict, climate change, and health inequities are expected to increase this burden further (WHO 2023).
For people who are blind or have severe visual impairment, independent navigation is among the most persistent daily challenges (İşlek 2025). Mobility aids therefore occupy a central place in both personal autonomy and social inclusion. Among these aids, guide dogs have long been recognized not only for their capacity to support safe and efficient travel but also for the psychosocial and participatory benefits they can enable. Yet, despite their documented effectiveness, guide-dog use in Muslim-majority societies and among Muslims living as minorities in Western countries raises distinctive religious, legal, and cultural questions. Islam is currently the fastest-growing religion globally; between 2010 and 2020 it expanded to roughly 2.0 billion adherents, comprising about 25.6 percent of the world’s population and forming the second-largest faith tradition after Christianity (Hackett 2025). Given this demographic reach and the transnational diversity of Muslim communities, understanding guide-dog use through an Islamic lens is increasingly important for disability access, policy, and intercultural coexistence.
Within Islamic tradition, perceptions of dogs reflect varied theological interpretations and cultural histories. The Qur’ān mentions dogs in limited contexts without explicit rulings on physical contact or domestication, while certain hadiths have been interpreted in ways that associate dogs with ritual impurity, leading some communities to avoid them in religious and public life (Foltz 2006). Alongside permissive and mercy-centered reports, other narrations have also been read as raising spiritual or ritual concerns. These include traditions stating that angels do not enter a house where a dog is present, reports about a “qirāt” reduction in reward for keeping a dog without a recognized need, and narrations associated with black dogs or the disruption of prayer. We note these points here to acknowledge the full evidentiary landscape from the outset, and we examine them in a systematic way in the sections that follow (see the Hadith Table and Discussion). At the same time, other scholars and historical records indicate more permissive stances and practical engagement with dogs in early Muslim societies (cf. Abou El Fadl 2006; Mikhail 2014). These divergences generate a contemporary dilemma for blind Muslims who may benefit from guide dogs, and they also shape social and institutional responses to guide-dog teams in shared or public environments.
Contemporary Islamic scholarship increasingly supports guide dogs for people with visual impairments, frequently grounding permissibility in principles such as ḍarūra (necessity) and maṣlaḥa (public welfare). In Islamic jurisprudence, ḍarūra denotes a legally cognizable state of necessity in which the prevention of grave and imminent harm warrants a temporary, narrowly circumscribed departure from an otherwise binding rule or prohibition. Evaluated through the framework of maqāṣid al-sharīʿa (the higher objectives of Islamic law), ḍarūra is classically tied to the preservation of the five essentials (al-ḍarūriyyāt): religion, life, intellect, lineage/honor, and property, and it draws support from Qur’anic and Prophetic dispensations granted under extreme hardship or coercion. Its operative logic is expressed in legal maxims such as “necessities permit prohibitions” (Çalış 2013). Maṣlaḥa refers to a legally relevant conception of welfare: a benefit that justifies action or policy insofar as it promotes well-being and prevents harm. In Islamic legal theory, it is authoritative only when it coheres with the Lawgiver’s purposes—again articulated as maqāṣid al-sharīʿa—and, accordingly, with the protection of the same five essentials, while remaining consistent with the Qur’an, the Sunna, and established methods of juristic reasoning such as qiyās (analogy grounded in a recognized legal cause). The relationship between maṣlaḥa and ḍarūra is thus structural: ḍarūra represents the high-threshold, emergency form of welfare-based reasoning, authorizing limited rukhaṣ (legal concessions) to avert severe harm where core interests are at stake. These concessions are exceptional rather than general, constrained by strict necessity, and do not function as a broad permission to suspend definitive rulings beyond what the exigency requires (Dönmez 2003). In this study, ḍarūra, together with related reasoning based on maṣlaḥa (welfare), serves as an analytical lens for examining contemporary fatwas concerning guide dogs.
Fatwas issued by national religious institutions and independent scholars often affirm use on the basis of compassion, human dignity, and the alleviation of hardship. Nevertheless, resistance persists in some contexts. Many guide-dog users report social stigma and institutional barriers rooted in the assumption that dogs are inherently impure, with recurring disputes over access to public and religious spaces illustrating the durability of such views. This tension can also affect non-Muslim guide-dog users, who sometimes face difficulties in interactions with Muslim communities in shared settings. Denial of entry to transportation systems, commercial venues, and places of worship has been documented, often arising from cultural misunderstandings or rigid applications of rulings (Bingham 2008; Burford 2017; Dolan 2010).
Despite the practical consequences of these conflicts, existing scholarship lacks an extensive interdisciplinary study that systematically brings together Islamic theology, disability studies, and public policy in relation to guide-dog use. In particular, while contemporary fatwas are frequently cited in public debate, they have not been comprehensively mapped and analyzed in relation to blindness and mobility. This study addresses that gap by critically engaging primary Islamic sources, authoritative fatwas, and contemporary academic discourse to examine the theological foundations for permissibility and the real-world implications of guide-dog use in Muslim-majority and multicultural settings. As part of this inquiry, we analyze 21 contemporary fatwas on guide dogs in Islam to clarify dominant legal arguments, points of convergence and disagreement, and their practical implications for access and inclusion. In doing so, the study contributes to religious-legal debates while offering practical recommendations aimed at strengthening inclusion, accessibility, and disability rights in diverse societies.
Literature Review
Research on blindness and mobility consistently identifies independent navigation as a core challenge for people with visual impairment (İşlek 2025). The professional field of Orientation and Mobility (O&M) emerged in the mid-twentieth century to enable safe and autonomous travel, initially developed for veterans blinded during World War II (Blasch, Wiener, and Welsh 1997). O&M training provides techniques and strategies for navigation and has traditionally emphasized white canes, auditory cues, tactile maps, and systematic environmental scanning (Wiener, Welsh, and Blasch 2010). These approaches remain widely used and effective, but scholarship also highlights guide dogs as among the most impactful mobility aids because their contribution extends beyond navigation into emotional and social well-being.
Guide Dogs: History and Benefits
Although the use of guide animals can be traced to antiquity, systematic guide-dog training began in early twentieth-century Germany to support soldiers blinded during World War I. In the United States, the founding of The Seeing Eye in 1929 established an institutional model that shaped guide-dog schools worldwide (Michalko 2002). Importantly, Islamic historical sources complicate the common assumption that assistance dogs are purely modern innovations. Reports from the Prophet Muḥammad’s lifetime indicate that at least one visually impaired companion, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Umm Maktūm, kept a dog for practical assistance—suggesting that functional dog-keeping was known among the earliest Muslims, long before modern guide-dog training programs. One narration states: “The Messenger of Allah ordered the killing of the dogs in Medina. Thereupon Ibn Umm Maktūm came to the Messenger of Allah and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, my eyes are blind. My house is far. I have a dog (will you permit this?)’ Thereupon he was granted a dispensation for a while. Then the Messenger of Allah ordered that his dog also be killed, and his dog was killed” (Abū Yaʿlā, Musnad, no. 2072; see also Aydınlı 1999; Yücel 2014).
A substantial body of work documents the functional advantages of guide dogs. They support safe travel; help users navigate complex, crowded, and unpredictable environments; assist with obstacle avoidance; and facilitate street crossings (Fanshawe et al. 2024). Comparative studies report that guide-dog users often experience greater autonomy, confidence, and independence than white-cane users (Whitmarsh 2005). Beyond mobility, research emphasizes psychosocial outcomes: guide dogs are associated with reduced stress and anxiety, lower social isolation, and enhanced feelings of emotional security and stability (Lloyd et al. 2021; Rodriguez et al. 2020). Social-participation literature further indicates that guide dogs can reduce stigma, support interpersonal interaction, and improve community engagement (Glenk et al. 2019). They may also reshape public perceptions of disability toward competence and capability (Howell and Salmon 2024). Outcomes linked to these dynamics include higher professional and recreational participation, more frequent pursuit of education and employment, and increased confidence in accessing public services and spaces (Glenk et al. 2019; Lindsay and Thiyagarajah 2021).
Islamic Perspectives on Dogs: Scripture, Interpretation, and Historical Practice
Within Islamic studies, dog-related rulings are widely recognized as interpretively diverse and are often situated within broader discussions of animals in Islamic thought. Scholarship examining animals in the Qur’ān highlights that the text references animals—including dogs—in ways that underscore moral, symbolic, and practical dimensions rather than providing systematic legal regulation (Tlili 2012). Complementary overviews of animals in Islamic tradition show that Muslim cultures have historically held multiple, sometimes contradictory, attitudes toward animals shaped by theology, law, and social context (Foltz 2006).
The Qur’ān itself references dogs in only a few passages and does not issue explicit rulings on contact, domestication, or utility. Interpretive attention therefore centers on hadith literature. Some hadiths have been understood by certain scholars and communities as linking dogs to ritual impurity, encouraging avoidance particularly in devotional or communal spaces (Foltz 2006). At the same time, other scholars argue for more permissive understandings, drawing on both interpretive reasoning and early historical evidence (cf. Abou El Fadl 2005, 2006; Mikhail 2014). Detailed historical studies emphasize that dogs were present in early Muslim environments: accounts indicate that the Prophet Muhammad prayed in the presence of dogs, companions raised puppies, and dogs reportedly roamed the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. Across Islamic history, dogs performed functional roles including herd management, hunting, protection, pest control, security, and urban sanitation. Studies of Ottoman and premodern contexts further confirm the embeddedness of animals, including dogs, in Muslim social and economic life (Mikhail 2014, 2017).
Legal and cultural scholarship also stresses the dog’s ambiguous status in Islam—sometimes framed as a valued companion or working animal, and at other times as a source of offense or impurity—depending on juristic school, historical period, and local custom (Berglund 2014; Subaşı 2011). Alan Mikhail’s historical analysis describes a pronounced shift approximately two centuries ago, attributing it to modernization processes that linked infectious disease to garbage and dogs, introduced new sanitation infrastructures, removed dogs from urban economies and spaces, and reduced their perceived utility. As these changes took hold, dogs increasingly came to be framed as unclean and harmful to public health, displacing earlier functional or positive roles with more negative cultural perceptions (Mikhail 2017). This historical account helps explain why contemporary Muslim views on guide dogs can differ sharply by region, tradition, and social context.
Contemporary Islamic Rulings and Disability Inclusion
Recent Islamic legal scholarship and fatwa literature increasingly supports guide-dog use for blind individuals, often invoking ḍarūra (necessity) and maṣlaḥa (public welfare). These arguments emphasize compassion, human dignity, and the religious imperative to alleviate hardship. Yet the literature also documents continuing resistance grounded in impurity discourses. This resistance can translate into stigma and barriers for Muslim guide-dog users, even where permissive legal reasoning exists.
Access Barriers and Intercultural Tensions
Empirical and policy-focused studies describe how assumptions of impurity can generate institutional exclusion in both Muslim-majority settings and multicultural societies. Guide-dog teams have been denied entry to public transport, commercial establishments, and places of worship, often due to misunderstandings or strict applications of contested rulings (Bingham 2008; Burford 2017; Dolan 2010). Such experiences are reported by Muslim guide-dog users and by non-Muslim users navigating Muslim communal environments, indicating that the issue operates at the intersection of theology, social norms, and disability rights.
Synthesis and Gap
Across these literatures, guide dogs emerge as highly effective mobility and psychosocial supports, while Islamic legal-interpretive traditions reveal both permissive foundations and socially entrenched resistance. However, the existing Islamic-studies scholarship addresses animals broadly and dogs specifically (e.g., in Qur’ānic interpretation, legal status, and historical practice), without offering focused, systematic analysis of guide dogs as assistive technology within Islamic law and Muslim lived experience (Abou El Fadl 2005, 2006; Berglund 2014; Foltz 2006; Mikhail 2014, 2017; Subaşı 2011; Tlili 2012). The persistence of access disputes and stigma suggests that legal permissibility alone does not guarantee inclusion, and it highlights the need for interdisciplinary work connecting theology, disability studies, and public policy. Responding to this gap, the present study offers a dedicated examination of guide dogs in Islam and, through analysis of 21 contemporary fatwas, clarifies how current juristic reasoning engages necessity, welfare, and purity concerns in ways that shape real-world inclusion.
Data and Methods
Data
This study investigates the permissibility and practical integration of guide dogs within Islamic contexts, aiming to provide evidence-based insights for professionals, scholars, and disability advocates working with Muslim communities. Given the diversity of theological interpretations and jurisprudential traditions across the Muslim world, the study draws on multiple bodies of textual and contextual material to capture both doctrinal reasoning and lived implications.
Data were collected from four primary source categories and complemented by applied case materials. First, the Qur’ān, Islam’s foundational text providing ethical and spiritual guidance, was treated as a scriptural baseline; all verses referencing dogs were identified and analyzed. Second, canonical hadith collections were examined, with key narrations from Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim selected to assess prophetic attitudes toward dogs and their treatment in daily life. Third, classical Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) was reviewed across the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali legal schools, focusing on doctrinal positions concerning the ritual status of dogs and the permissibility of keeping or using them for various purposes.
Fourth, contemporary fatwas specifically addressing dogs as service or guide animals for blind individuals were collected and analyzed. These fatwas were issued by recognized Sunni and Shi‘a Islamic institutions and scholars worldwide. Collection was conducted through systematic searches of fatwa databases and direct inquiries to relevant religious authorities, including a formal request to Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs. The dataset covers rulings issued through April 2025, and in total includes 21 fatwas explicitly focused on guide dogs.
To situate religious-legal discourse within social reality, the study additionally reviewed documented case reports and media coverage involving discrimination or legal controversies related to guide dogs in both Muslim-majority countries and Western multicultural societies. These materials were used to contextualize how juristic positions intersect with real-world access, stigma, and inclusion.
Methods
The research adopts a qualitative, interpretive methodology integrating textual analysis of Islamic sources with careful attention to historical and social context. This design is appropriate for underexplored and nuanced socio-religious questions, where meaning is embedded in layered traditions and contemporary practice (Creswell and Poth 2017). The overall methodological strategy combines systematic textual analysis, historical contextualization, and legal interpretation to develop a multi-layered understanding of the status of dogs in Islamic tradition and its implications for disability inclusion.
Analysis proceeded in several linked stages. Qur’ānic verses, hadiths, and contemporary fatwas were examined thematically to identify recurring motifs, legal reasoning patterns, and ethical principles related to dogs and their use in assistance for blindness (Guest, Namey, and Mitchell 2012). Each text was interpreted within its historical and jurisprudential horizon, recognizing that interpretations and applications may shift across time in response to changing societal circumstances (Patton 2015).
A comparative jurisprudential component was then employed. Doctrinal positions from the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali schools were systematically compared to map areas of consensus (ijmā‘) and divergence (ikhtilāf) regarding dogs’ ritual status and permitted functions. Contemporary fatwas were read against these classical frameworks to assess how inherited doctrines are extended to present-day questions of guide dogs and disability access.
This article adopts maqāṣid al-sharīʿa as its primary theoretical framework, approaching Islamic law as a purposive normative system aimed at realizing higher ethical ends rather than merely applying discrete rules. Classical formulations arrange these ends through a hierarchy of necessities, needs, and refinements, with the necessities (ḍarūriyyāt) centered on protecting religion, life, intellect, lineage/honor, and property; contemporary maqāṣid scholarship further highlights values such as justice, human dignity, facilitation, and social cooperation (for maqāṣid al-sharīʿa see Auda 2008; Hallaq 2009; Nas 2022). From this perspective, debates on dogs—especially guide dogs—are analyzed as questions of ends and means, where ḍarūra (necessity) and maṣlaḥa (public interest) operate as mechanisms to protect the ḍarūriyyāt when strict adherence would cause serious harm and no viable alternative exists. We therefore map relevant fatwas onto layered maqāṣid—general (removing hardship, preventing harm, preserving dignity), specific (securing disability access and participation in religious life), and partial (maintaining worship-related cleanliness through feasible protocols)—to show how permissive rulings can function as proportionate, time-bound accommodations that preserve both religious observance and safe, independent mobility. In conversation with disability studies, we conceptualize guide dogs as enabling technologies that support independent living and equal participation, and thus help expose how exclusionary readings may reproduce marginalization in the name of religious compliance (Meekosha and Shuttleworth 2009). Finally, by integrating the concept of lived religion (Ammerman 2013), the study foregrounds how doctrinal rulings are negotiated in the everyday lives of both Muslims and non-Muslims with visual impairments, portraying religious practice as dynamic and responsive to changing social realities.
Results
Dogs in the Qur’ān
The Qur’ān does not mention modern guide dogs because service animals for the visually impaired were unknown in the seventh century, yet it outlines how dogs are viewed in scripture and situates them within a broader animal ethic in which 7 of 114 chapters are named after animals (Tlili 2012).
Sūrat al-Māʾida permits the use of trained hunting animals and allows eating what they lawfully catch after invoking God’s name, which affirms the legitimacy of trained dogs in beneficial tasks and provides a textual basis that can be analogically extended to other trained roles, including guide dogs (Qur’ān 5:4). Sūrat al-Aʿrāf uses a dog’s panting as a simile for a person who rejects guidance, which critiques human conduct without declaring dogs evil or impure (Qur’ān 7:176). Sūrat al-Kahf depicts the Companions of the Cave with their dog stretched at the entrance, which highlights loyalty and protection; tradition preserves its name, Qitmīr (Qur’ān 18:18; Ersöz 1991). Read together, these passages present a nuanced, generally positive portrayal in which dogs can serve human needs, teach moral lessons through imagery, and exemplify faithful companionship, without any categorical Qur’ānic condemnation of the animals themselves.
Dogs in Hadith Literature
The Sunnah (prophetic tradition), preserved in hadith literature, serves as a critical secondary source for Islamic legal and ethical guidance. When analyzing hadiths on dogs, 14 primary narrations were identified across various collections—particularly in Ṣaḥīḥ Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, which are widely regarded as the most credible hadith compilations among Sunni Muslims. These hadiths can be broadly categorized into pro-dog and anti-dog views, as summarized in Table 1.
Key Hadith Narrations on Dogs: Contexts, Implications, and Sources.
Taken together, as Table 1 illustrates, the hadith corpus presents a nuanced picture of dogs. Affirmative narrations foreground kindness, and practical utility, accommodating working animals such as guide dogs. By contrast, reports that discourage close contact call for contextual reading: much scholarship situates the stricter narrations within specific historical and hygienic conditions (e.g., rabies prevalence, pre-modern sanitation) rather than as timeless prohibitions. Some texts also reproduce pre-Islamic folkloric anxieties by using dogs to mark boundaries of purity and social order, while others address concrete public-health and safety concerns; accordingly, jurists have treated them as rules of ritual purity or context-bound restrictions and have questioned the authenticity of the most extreme reports (Abou El Fadl 2005). The Discussion revisits these interpretive trajectories in detail.
Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence on Dogs
Sunni Islam’s four major legal schools offer a range of perspectives on the status and permissibility of dogs, reflecting different interpretations of the source evidence. Table 2 provides a simplified overview of their stances.
Legal Positions on Dogs across the Four Sunni Schools.
In summary, while Islamic jurists differ on the issue of ritual impurity (with the Maliki school taking the most lenient view and the Shafi‘i the strictest), all four Sunni schools permit the use of dogs for legitimate purposes such as hunting, herding, guarding, and other necessities (Bardakoğlu 2002; Baysa 2025). By extension, a guide dog—fulfilling a crucial function for a visually impaired person—would be considered permissible in all schools under the allowance for need (ḍarūra) or public benefit (maṣlaḥa).
Fatwas and Islamic Legal Rulings on Guide Dogs
Fatwas, non-binding religious/legal opinions issued by qualified Islamic scholars in response to specific legal or ethical questions, were the unit of analysis. The study examined 21 fatwas on guide-dog use, issued by both institutional bodies and individual scholars, each addressing the permissibility and practical use of guide dogs by persons with visual impairments. Data were collected through systematic searches of institutional and scholarly fatwa databases using the keywords “dog,” “guide,” and “blind” in Turkish, English, and Arabic, and through a formal inquiry to the official online fatwa service of Turkey’s authorized religious authority (Diyanet) requesting a ruling on permissibility. The corpus is limited to fatwas retrieved as of April 2025. Each fatwa was coded as permissive or restrictive, with attention to the underlying legal reasoning and contextual factors.
As shown above, we identified 21 fatwas on guide dogs: permission with conditions, 16/21 (≈76%); permission only under ḍarūra or strong ḥāja (necessity or compelling need), 4/21 (≈19%); and non-permission except in rare cases, 1/21 (≈5%). In total, 20/21 allow guide dogs to some degree, typically invoking ḍarūra as a central legal principle, indicating a broadly favorable contemporary stance on permissibility. The lone opposing view reflects a more conservative position, citing concerns about ritual purity and the dogs’ effectiveness, and remains an outlier. The Discussion that follows examines the reasoning behind these rulings and how they reconcile, or fail to reconcile, religious doctrine with modern disability inclusion.
Discussion
The findings of this study highlight the intricate interplay between Islamic teachings, cultural norms, and the practical use of guide dogs for individuals with visual impairments. By examining primary Islamic sources, legal frameworks, and scholarly interpretations, this research demonstrates the adaptability of Islamic jurisprudence in addressing contemporary challenges while maintaining its ethical and spiritual principles.
Qur’anic Verses Regarding Dogs
The Qur’ānic portrayal of dogs is varied yet generally neutral to positive. Scripture recognizes their utility and depicts them as loyal in specific narratives, and it contains no categorical declaration that dogs are intrinsically impure. Sūrat al-Māʾida authorizes trained animals and the eating of what they lawfully catch, establishing the integration of trained dogs into permissible human activity (Qur’ān 5:4). Chapters such as al-Aʿrāf and al-Kahf present dogs in metaphor and companionship without condemning the animals themselves, which supports a nuanced view in which dogs can embody service and loyalty. This acknowledgment of disciplined assistance suggests openness to other helpful roles, including guiding and protection. Islamic legal theory emphasizes compassion and the removal of hardship, and the scriptural principle that “God intends for you ease and does not intend hardship” underwrites accommodations that restore mobility and dignity (Qur’ān 2:185). Applying this ethos, the use of a trained guide dog aligns with taysīr (facilitation) within the Sharīʿa (for taysīr see Kamali 2015). Read together, these elements indicate that the Qur’ānic evidence, understood in context, supports accepting guide dogs as lawful tools that enhance well-being while remaining consistent with the aims of divine law.
Hadiths and the Permissibility of Dogs in Islam
The Sunnah and hadith operationalize Qur’ānic principles by recording the Prophet Muḥammad’s sayings, actions, and tacit approvals, and they shape Muslim attitudes toward animals, including dogs. The hadith references to dogs far exceed those in the Qur’ān, and fourteen relevant reports were identified: eight portray dogs negatively and four portray them favorably or neutrally, which helps explain divergent scholarly and communal interpretations about guide dogs in Islamic settings. The corpus is complex. Some narrations discourage contact with dogs, mention angels not entering a house with a dog, or require washing a vessel licked by a dog, while other narrations emphasize mercy and practical benefit. Contextual interpretation is necessary, and many reports that seem negative have been read by scholars as responding to specific conditions of the Prophet’s era—especially hygiene and disease control when rabies posed a lethal risk (Abou El Fadl 2006). Early avoidance of dogs in certain situations can thus reflect public-health precautions and prevailing social norms rather than a timeless injunction.
As noted earlier, an early discussion relevant to assistance animals appears in a report concerning the blind Companion ʿAbd Allāh ibn Umm Maktūm. In the context of a rabies-related culling of dogs in Medina, he sought an exemption to keep his dog due to his blindness and the distance of his home; the report indicates that a temporary dispensation was initially granted, but was later revoked and the dog was ultimately killed in line with the broader directive (Abū Yaʿlā, Musnad, no. 2072; see also Aydınlı 1999; Yücel 2014). The sequence indicates an initial necessity-based accommodation followed by enforcement of a general public-health policy rather than a judgment about intrinsic canine impurity, and it preserves early evidence of functional dog ownership by a blind Muslim relevant to guide-dog use.
Classical authors sought to harmonize contested reports with Islam’s ethic of compassion. Al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868) rejected excessively literal or harsh interpretations concerning animals, and Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240) questioned the authenticity of traditions that mandate killing dogs as contradictory to Islamic teachings (Abou El Fadl 2006; Foltz 2006; Subaşı 2011). Canonically sound narrations commend acts of mercy toward thirsty animals; additional reports observe that dogs roamed Medina and even entered the mosque without prompting the Companions to scrub the floors, and one account records the Prophet arranging protection for a nursing dog and her pups during a military march (Abou El Fadl 2006). Some historical notices further claim that a wife of Muḥammad, Maymūnah, owned a dog named Mismar (Ibn al-Marzubān 1978). Taken together, these materials cohere around an ethic of mercy and practical accommodation.
El Fadl argues that anti-dog narrations crystallize cultural prejudice and political symbolism—such as the longstanding vilification of “black dogs” and practices linking dogs to the humiliation of rebels—and that they underwrite claims about angels avoiding dog-keepers, diminished reward, and prohibitions on trading in or slaughtering dogs except as working animals (Abou El Fadl 2006:320). He connects parts of this material to episodic crises and fragile transmission: some culling reports were “invented at a time of a rabies plague in Medina,” and claims that women or dogs invalidate prayer drew immediate critique, notably, another wife of the Muhammed, ʿĀʾisha’s rebuke of Abū Hurayra, and were later discounted since “most Muslim jurists ruled that these traditions are not authentic and are unreliable” (Abou El Fadl 2006:321–22). Many such reports rely on single transmission chains and were “declared weak or apocryphal,” prompting commentators to foreground their conflict with stronger traditions and overarching moral principles (Abou El Fadl 2006:321).
The qirāt narrations are often mobilized as evidence of “spiritual loss” rather than mere impurity concerns. A contextual reading, however, suggests that these reports function as a discouragement of keeping dogs without recognized benefit, while explicitly permitting functional ownership (e.g., guarding, hunting). Contemporary jurists extend this logic by analogy: a trained guide dog serves a higher and more direct necessity—mobility, safety, and dignity—thus falling within the dispensation framework of ḍarūra and the maqāṣid-oriented removal of hardship. In this framing, the ethical concern is not the dog’s presence per se, but avoidable practices that produce nuisance or neglect; necessity-based assistance does not trigger the same moral logic.
Read together with Qur’anic passages that permit the use of trained animals for lawful purposes and foreground the removal of hardship, the broader Islamic textual record supports a contextual ethic in which well-trained canine assistance promotes human welfare without requiring the claim that dogs are inherently impure. Accordingly, when dog-related hadith are interpreted with methodological rigor and historical awareness, they do not constitute a decisive obstacle to guide-dog use; rather, the Prophetic emphasis on preventing harm and accommodating necessity provides strong grounds for permissibility. In this sense, recognizing guide dogs as legitimate assistive partners is a contemporary extension of Islam’s commitment to relieving hardship and safeguarding human dignity.
Islamic Jurisprudence on Dogs
Indeed, Islamic law (sharīʿa) has always recognized exceptions for necessity. The hadiths themselves make clear that dogs can serve legitimate purposes: for example, dogs trained for hunting and livestock protection are explicitly allowed without any indication of sin (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1572). All four Sunni legal schools (as detailed in the Results) permit keeping dogs for valid needs such as herding, guarding, or hunting, despite differences in how they classify the animal’s impurity. By extension, a dog that serves as the eyes of a blind person can be seen as equally valid, if not more so, given the preservation of human life and dignity involved.
Two key principles of Islamic jurisprudence bolster this argument: ḍarūra (necessity) and maṣlaḥa (public interest or welfare). These principles allow for flexibility in the law to prevent harm or hardship (see Kamali 2013). Using a guide dog clearly falls under necessity and public benefit, as it significantly improves a person’s safety and quality of life. Modern conditions (such as effective rabies vaccinations and improved hygiene) further reduce the reasons one might object to dogs on practical grounds. What remains is the core ethical teaching: causing unnecessary hardship to a blind individual by denying them a proven means of assistance would be fundamentally at odds with Islamic values.
Even when jurists/madhabs deem guide dogs permissible, hesitation often remains because everyday attitudes are shaped by more than formal Islamic jurisprudence. Embodied notions of purity, local custom, and widely shared “avoidance” habits can override technical legal allowances, especially in settings influenced by stricter impurity classifications such as the Shafiʿi view of dogs as inherently impure (najis al-ʿayn). In these contexts, the tradition’s permission for “working dogs” may be acknowledged in principle but still feel socially uncomfortable in practice. In addition, modern urbanization and changing sanitation regimes have helped recast dogs as symbols or carriers of uncleanliness, weakening their perceived utility and reinforcing stigma (Mikhail 2017). Consequently, restrictions in mosques, transport, and commercial venues often reflect social risk-management and communal sensibilities more than the dominant legal reasoning that permits guide dogs on grounds of need.
Fatwas and the Permissibility of Guide Dogs in Islam
Fatwas are a core instrument of Islamic jurisprudence that offer authoritative guidance where the Qur’an or hadith do not address an issue directly. Because guide dogs are a modern development, fatwas have become central to assessing their permissibility for people with visual impairments. Based on the 21 fatwa summaries reviewed, positions cluster as follows: permission with conditions, 16/21 (≈76%); allowance only under ḍarūra or strong ḥāja (necessity or compelling need), 4/21 (≈19%); and non-permission except rare cases, 1/21 (≈5%). The dominant pattern therefore supports conditional permissibility.
Across these rulings, jurists rely on a shared doctrinal toolkit. They acknowledge najāsa (ritual impurity) of canine saliva but treat it as manageable through ordinary cleansing, while distinguishing saliva from hair or sweat, which are described as pure or not problematic. They emphasize ḍarūra and rafʿ al-ḥaraj (removing undue hardship), and they invoke maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid (public interest and the law’s objectives), with particular weight given to mobility, safety, dignity, and inclusion for blind persons. Analogy to working dogs in hunting, herding, and guarding is common, so guide dogs are treated as a contemporary instance of recognized functional need. Some opinions cite Mālikī leniencies that regard the animal’s body as pure and handle contact pragmatically, while others retain stricter saliva rules yet still permit use due to need.
Under Position A, permissive fatwas allow guide dogs provided purity is protected and function preserved, typically by keeping the animal out of prayer halls with coordination from mosque leadership where necessary, avoiding wet contact and cleansing any saliva before prayer, designating home areas and when prudent separate utensils, relying on professionally trained dogs, carrying documentation to prevent disputes, and encouraging accommodations in public institutions and transport. Position B permits guide dogs only when no adequate alternative exists or when need rises to necessity, citing frequent saliva contact, the availability of canes, human guides, or electronic aids in some contexts, and sensitivities about mosque space. Position C declines permission outside classical categories such as hunting or guarding, warns of spiritual downsides, questions canine reliability, and recommends reliance on human assistance.
Two substantive issues shape the legal analysis. First is ritual impurity: certain hadith classify a dog’s saliva as impure, yet the Qur’an does not label dogs unclean, and the Mālikī school does not consider dogs inherently impure; the resulting fiqh perspective is that impurity is manageable and does not preclude work with trained animals. Guide dogs can be trained to avoid unnecessary indoor soiling, and handlers can maintain ritual cleanliness by rinsing saliva from hands or clothes. Second is effectiveness and safety: objections to reliability are contradicted by evidence that guide dogs undergo rigorous training, excel at navigating obstacles, obey commands, and even disobey unsafe instructions to protect their handler; users typically gain greater mobility, confidence, and social participation than cane-only users (Whitmarsh 2005; Wirth and Rein 2008), with international schools maintaining high standards that support intelligent decisions in dynamic environments and with rights to independence and privacy also at stake (Lloyd et al. 2021).
Given clear benefits and manageable risks, maṣlaḥa favors permitting guide dogs, and Islamic law gives substantial weight to measures that secure welfare and remove hardship (Hallaq 2005; Kamali 2013). In light of the data, the doctrinal principles, and the empirical evidence, the use of a trained guide dog by a blind or visually impaired Muslim is permissible and well supported within contemporary Islamic scholarship.
Limitation, Recommendations, and Conclusion
Limitations
This study is based on qualitative, interpretive textual analysis of Qur’ānic passages, hadith literature, fiqh traditions, and contemporary fatwas; therefore, while it clarifies theological and legal reasoning on guide-dog permissibility, it cannot fully capture how guide dogs are practically experienced or negotiated by blind Muslims across diverse everyday settings. The fatwa corpus, though systematically assembled and consisting of 21 rulings available through April 2025, is necessarily shaped by accessibility: it includes only published or formally retrievable fatwas, and may omit local, oral, or unpublished opinions, limiting the completeness of juristic representation. Relatedly, selection is affected by language and platform constraints, since searches were conducted primarily in Turkish, Arabic, and English through indexed databases, which may underrepresent rulings in other Muslim languages or less-visible venues. Denominational and regional coverage is uneven, as Sunni legal schools receive more systematic comparison than classical Shi‘a jurisprudence, and some Muslim-majority regions lack easily accessible fatwa infrastructures. Finally, thematic interpretation entails a degree of scholarly subjectivity despite dialogical reflexivity, the analysis is confined to guide dogs rather than service animals more broadly, and the fatwa landscape remains dynamic, meaning later rulings may refine or shift the snapshot presented here.
Recommendations for Policy and Social Change
Build community capacity by training imams and community leaders through short courses on disability inclusion and the permissibility of assistive devices such as guide dogs. Pair this with mosque- and media-based campaigns that foreground relevant fatwas, the Islamic principles of easing hardship (rafʿ al-ḥaraj, taysīr), and real stories of blind Muslims to reduce stigma. Within mosques, adopt simple inclusive practices—most notably a clean, designated spot for guide dogs during prayers—to signal that disabled worshippers are welcome.
Strengthen systems by guaranteeing clear access rights for guide-dog users across public spaces (mosques, schools, transport) and aligning health/safety rules with religious needs through measures like designated areas. Foster ongoing collaboration among scholars, disability advocates, clinicians, and guide-dog users, including interfaith and intercultural exchanges to address concerns and update guidance. Support research by funding studies and case reports on Islam, disability, and assistive animals to equip seminaries, healthcare providers, and the public with evidence-based, empathetic guidance.
Implementing these recommendations would provide concrete expression to Islam’s enduring commitments to justice and inclusion. Normalizing the use of guide dogs for those in need will strengthen the independence and dignity of blind and visually impaired individuals, while exemplifying the practical application of Islamic ethics and enriching society as a whole. In an increasingly diverse and globalized world, such measures help ensure that no one is excluded due to misunderstanding or prejudice. Recognizing guide dogs as legitimate and indispensable assistive tools is a significant step toward more accessible and inclusive Muslim communities, enabling each member to live life with faith and confidence.
Conclusion
Dogs hold an ambiguous status in Islamic thought and practice, sometimes condemned as impure and vile and sometimes praised for loyalty, devotion, and self-sacrifice, and recent growth in companion-dog ownership in some Muslim societies suggests these attitudes are context-dependent and evolving rather than fixed (Berglund 2014). Reviewing theological, legal, and cultural dimensions, this study finds that much resistance to guide dogs does not arise from core principles of Islamic law but from outdated or overly rigid interpretations that persist in some communities (Abou El Fadl 2006; Mikhail 2014, 2017). Islamic tradition has long accommodated ambiguity and diversity of opinion (ikhtilāf) in jurisprudence, a flexibility that enables scholars to apply enduring values to new situations (Bauer 2011). Historical juristic caution reflected specific contexts such as fear of disease or concern for ritual purity, whereas other past and present interpretations emphasize compassion, necessity, and benefit.
A critical re-examination shows that objections often rest on context-specific rulings. Many hadiths that portray dogs negatively address public-health and sanitary concerns of seventh-century Arabia and were not intended as universal prohibitions against beneficial uses. Under modern conditions, including control of rabies and maintainable cleanliness, such narrations warrant contemporary reading. Some reports used to justify aversion are of questionable authenticity or applicability. By contrast, the Islamic ethic of kindness to animals and the mandate to alleviate human hardship carry substantial weight, as reflected in fatwa literature and classical jurists’ writings. When these higher objectives are prioritized, guide dogs appear clearly permissible and in harmony with Islamic teachings. Recent fatwas overwhelmingly affirm permissibility, since 20 of 21 analyzed rulings ground their conclusions in the Qur’ānic and Prophetic injunctions to remove hardship and preserve human dignity. This pattern indicates that Islamic scholarship is responsive to the needs of Muslims with disabilities and uses established legal tools to reconcile tradition with contemporary realities. Ongoing opposition is better understood as social stigma or lack of awareness. Denying a blind person a guide dog inflicts greater social, psychological, and practical harm than any perceived ritual concern and conflicts with the maqāṣid al-sharīʿa. Islamic law and values align with disability inclusion, since justice (ʿadl) and public welfare (maṣlaḥa) support accommodation and empowerment. Because guide dogs enable independent navigation, embracing them is not only legally permissible but also an ethical imperative that calls for coordinated action by religious authorities, policymakers, and community leaders to advance acceptance and inclusion.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We thank the editor of Review of Religious Research and two anonymous reviewers for their careful readings and constructive guidance, which significantly improved the clarity, rigor, and accessibility of this manuscript. We are also grateful to our colleague Mehmet Emin Nas for his valuable suggestions and comments on earlier drafts.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.