Ihyaaud Deen An Effort to Revive Deen in Totality
Hazrat Moulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (rahmatullahi ‘alaih) once mentioned:
A person who does not possess a sound temperament and whose understanding is deficient finds irrelevant facts appealing to his logic, but is unable to grasp and comprehend the correct arguments. I was once explaining, to an educated person the reason for rearing dogs being impermissible. I said to him, “The greatest reason is that Allah Ta’ala and His Rasul (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam) have prohibited it.” However, he was unhappy with this explanation. I thus gave him a second explanation saying, “A dog has one quality which is so bad that it wipes out all its good qualities. This quality is that it will never assist its own kind. Do you not see how enraged it becomes on seeing another dog?” When he heard this explanation, he became very happy, whereas this is merely a logical explanation and is not the actual reason for the prohibition. The actual reason for the prohibition is that Shari’at has prohibited keeping dogs. However, this reason did not appeal to him as much as the second point did. (Malfoozaat Husnul Azeez pg.208)
