Jakim wants explanation from dog event organiser
(Bernama) – The Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) will call the organiser of the programme “I want to touch a dog” to seek further clarification on the campaign.
Its director-general Othman Mustapha said the campaign was conducted openly, including for Muslims, without a good reason.
He feared that the organiser might have a hidden agenda and was trying to create a new culture that could lead to insulting Islam.
“It simultaneously can lead to public anxiety, especially among Muslims, because it has clearly contradicted with the belief of the sect and the norms and customs in Malaysia,” he said in a statement here, today.
Othman also said that as Malaysia was a nation that officially adhered to the Shafie sect, Jakim had to play its role to ensure Muslims in the country did not violate the denomination.
According to the Syafie Sect, Muslims were banned from deliberately touching a dog as defiling oneself without cause is forbidden in Islam, he said.
“Fundamentally, Islam does not despise dogs as it is one of god’s creatures.
What more, torturing, striking and killing a dog without reason is utterly opposed to in Islamic teachings,” he said.
Nevertheless, he said, under the Syafie Sect, Muslims were forbidden from adopting dogs as pets.
Othman said Jakim had commented further on the issue related to the position of dogs in Islam as well as related legal rulings via the Jakim decree portal at www.efatwa.gov.my.
The organising of the programme by Syed Azmi Alhabshi allegedly was aimed at helping the public, especially the Muslim community, overcome their fear of dogs.
The two-hour programme in Central Park, One Utama near Petaling Jaya, yesterday was thronged by hundreds of Muslims who took the opportunity to touch dogs, witnessed by their owners.
Othman said, although Islam invokes the sertu cleansing method when defiled by faeces categorised as ‘mughallazah’, it was not an excuse to allow a person to hold mughallazah faeces deliberately.
“The action is akin to a person purposefully committing sin on the excuse he could later repent,” he said.
