Dogs the hadith and Iran and more evidence is anachronistic
Reader comment on item: Rooting for Ahmadinejad
in response to reader comment: Re: Hostility to Dogs

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jun 16, 2009 at 07:50

Aymenn wrote

>There are numerous ahadith (sayings of Mohammed) that are hostile to dogs. For example, this one about their being unclean and consequently annulling prayer:

You are very correct that the source of these traditions is the hadith

>"Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas:

Notice that the source of such tradition is ibn Abbas which sould raise many alarms. The turth is more likely than not if he even existed he really did not know Muhammad as we are told that he either died in 693CE or 687CE (see Henri Lammens) or 55-61 years after the death of Muhammad at a time when the life span was no more than 30-35 years which means that either he was not even born or he was too young when Muhammad died in 632CE which makes any hadith attributed to him to be suspect

What is even most damaging to the credibility of ibn Abbas as a source of any hadith is and in the words of Patricia Crone:

"of ibn hanbal's traditions 1710 including repetitions are transmitted by the comanion ibn abbas yet less than 50 years earlier one scholar had estimated that ibn abbas had only heard 9 traditions from the prophet while another thought that the correct number might be 10. If ibn Abbas had heard 10 traditions from the prophet in the years around 800CE but over a thousand by 850CE how many had he heard in 700CE or 632CE? even if we accept that 10 of ibn abbas' traditions are authentic how do we identify them in a pool of 1710? we do not even know whether they are to be found in this pool as opposed to that of 530,000 traditions dismissed on the ground that their chains of authorities were faulty uner such circumstances it is scarcely justified to persume hadith to be authentic until the contrary has been proven"

So much for the credibility of any hadith attributed to Ibn Abbas

So you can see that the name of Ibn Abbas as the source of such hadith should raise the alarm

>Ikrimah reported on the authority of Ibn Abbas, saying: I think the Apostle of Allah said: When one of you prays without a sutrah, a dog, a pig, a Jew, a Magian (Zoroastrian), and a woman cut off his prayer, but it will suffice if they pass in front of him at a distance of over a stone's throw".(Abu Dawud 0704).

I did not read the hadith in Arabic so I'm not really sure what the word "sutrah" really means but the above hadith is one among many about Islam and dogs and as far as we have from the historical record assuming that Mecca even existed and was such a great mercantile city (see Meccan Trade) the information we have about both Jews and Zoroastrians in the Hijaz is no more than literary evidence composed by the Muslim ulama living in distant Iran and Mesopotamia in the 2nd and 3rd century of Islam. The the aim of such traditions in the words of Wansbrough is to tell us that Islam really comes from the Hijaz but most important the ulama we trying to explain what the opaque revelation called al-Qur'an is really saying. The turth is there is no extant historical record be it papyri, ostraca, monuments etc...that would attest to the existence of Jews or Zoroastrains in the Hijaz prior to 632CE (see Hoyland's Arabia from the bronze age)

Which should make us wonder that such hadith was composed where Jews and Zoroastrians and Muslims lived together and that place must be Iran which means that the above hadith is anachronistic

>As you may know, many ahadith were created in the late 8th and 9th centuries C.E. to reflect the attitudes of the Muslim community.

Very true (see Ignaz Goldziher)

>The Muslim hostility to dogs arose from the fact that the Zoroastrians, who were regarded as infidels, dhimmis and unclean, kept them as companions. The hadith above was possibly created in light of this contemporary attitude,

And this is why the above hadith is anachronistic

> but there is also the possibility that the hadith, along with others regarding dogs, is indeed rooted in Mohammed's teachings.

If the hadith is suspect which it is then we really do not know what the teachings of Muhammad (if he even existed) were really all about

>It is interesting to note that a Zoroastrian is also regarded as one who would annul a prayer.

That does not surpise me and more evidence that the above hadith is anachronistic and that it was made up by the ulama

Now to paraphrase the words of Goldziher the hadith must be regarded as the product of the emerging Muslim community in the late 2-3 centuries of islam and it reflects the religious, economic, legal and spritual aspirations such community and it has nothing to do with the historical Muhammad if he even existed

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