\n Why mention she\u2019s Muslim?<\/p>\n \n<\/p> Ah, the lead sentence explains, \u201cSeeing-eye dogs are a nonstarter among many Muslims who consider the animals unclean\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \n<\/p> From the get-go, the reader is told to assume that all Muslims are strongly opposed to having a seeing-eye dog.\u00a0 Let me state that many Muslims<\/em> who would not generally permit dogs in their home would reconsider if a blind child or relative was in the picture. Now, whom do you believe, a reporter who did not grow up in a Muslim household or a blogger who did and coincidentally also dislikes dogs? See how sourcing is a problem here? <\/span> \u201cMany Muslims consider dogs unclean,\u201d by itself is an accurate statement, but assuming that many Muslims would not have a seeing-eye dog is not. It\u2019s like saying a devout Catholic woman diagnosed with anemia would never consider using birth control to regulate her period. If you want to argue that Natural Family Planning is less of an issue in the Catholic tradition than the concern for keeping dogs in an area of worship is in the Islamic tradition, please provide me with evidence.<\/p>\n In stark contrast to this lead, The Detroit Free Press<\/em><\/a> starts of their excellent story by focusing on the main subject-not all Muslims in the world but one: \u201cMona Ramouni of Dearborn lost her eyesight as a complication of premature birth \u2014 she was born three months early.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no mention of Islam or Muslims anywhere, because the reporter was smart enough to grasp that this is not a story about Muslims disliking dogs, but about a\u00a0 resilient woman who never used one as a guide.<\/p>\n The next sentence tells us why: \u201cShe has never had a guide animal, and when she told her parents that she wanted one, they said that they would be her guides.\u201d Aha! Suddenly the culprit is not Islam but overprotective parents.<\/p>\n \n<\/p> Let\u2019s take a look at the headline again, just for kicks. \u201cSeeing-eye dogs are a nonstarter among many Muslims who consider the animals unclean.\u201d A non-starter? As in, it\u2019s not even negotiable? Says who<\/em>? One Muslim family? Again, using the story of one Muslim family and the premise that many Muslims consider dogs unclean, does not in any way prove that they (ahem, we) wouldn\u2019t use one as <\/span>seeing-eye guide. Saying Muslims consider dogs unclean without offering any contextualization allows the reader to assume that Muslims don\u2019t have dogs! Or worse, that they (ahem, we) wouldn\u2019t even consider having one to help out a blind child. Did this writer even try to find a blind Muslim who actually does indeed have a seeing-eye dog? Or at least a blind Muslim who disagrees with the family in this story?<\/p>\n \n<\/p> After all, this article gives us the impression that Ms. Mona Ramouni, the blind woman at hand, would use a dog if it wasn\u2019t for her parent\u2019s aversion to it:<\/p>\n \n<\/p> \u201cShe\u2019s an observant Sunni Muslim and respects her Jordanian-born parents\u2019 aversion to having a dog in the home where she lives along with three of her six siblings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \n<\/p> Wait a second, do Shi\u2019as have dogs? Do Shi\u2019as consider dogs unclean? Because if they do, I understand why it\u2019s relevant to mention she\u2019s a Sunni Muslim. Dearborn is not Baghdad after all.<\/p>\n \n<\/p> Sourcing is obviously a problem her. The reporter probably thought so too, that would explain why he called up the Council on American-Islamic Relations<\/span>\u2018 Michigan chapter to give the whole Muslims are opposed to seeing-eye dogs thing some more legitimacy. The story says,<\/p>\n While most Muslims believe dogs can violate ritual purity, horses are seen as \u201cregal animals,\u201d says Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations<\/span>\u2018 Michigan chapter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As opposed to dogs who are what, animals for the peasantry?<\/p>\n Walid explains, \u201cStill, there would be concerns about bringing a horse into certain establishments and areas of worship as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Thank you brother for clarifying that. We will make sure \u201cNo horses allowed\u201d is listed in our masjid\u2019s bylaws right under \u201cNo horsing around with the opposite sex.\u201d<\/p>\n Is it just me or is Walid saying there\u2019s really no difference between a blind Muslim using a horse or a dog as a guide? It seems like either is permissible, but neither animal should be brought into a mosque or a designated area of worship.<\/p>\n \n<\/p> Then again, why should I expect the reporter understand that when the Ramouni family cannot?<\/p>\n I am not denying that many Muslims hesitate in keeping a dog as a pet because of the ong-standing beief that they are flithy, and thereby invalidate one\u2019s ablution, yet this belief is not supported anywhere in the Qur\u2019an, which only mentions dogs favorably<\/a>.\u00a0 This means the idea of dogs as unclean doesn\u2019t technically have a basis in Islamic law. Moreover, there is amongst Muslims varying degrees of adherence to this tradition, either informally with some families keeping dogs as pets, others keeping them only as guard dogs, and others not anywhere in the home at all, or more formally, with the Maliki school of thought<\/a> disagreeing with the entire premise of dogs as unclean.<\/p>\n \n<\/p> So in short, it is incorrect to link the story of one Muslim family who prefers not to have a seeing-eye dog for their blind daughter to a hypothetical situation in which many Muslims would also not have (or not even think about having, because it\u2019s a \u201cnon-starter\u201d) a seeing-eye dog based on the sketchy premise that Muslims regard dogs as unclean.<\/p>\n Moving on. Let\u2019s go back to the CAIR quote. I get that the reporter wanted something to back up the dogs are unclean angle, but CAIR is a civil rights organization. They can\u2019t magically issue some sort of fatwa about dogs and, even if they did, no one would care, because CAIR is a civil rights organization. <\/span>It would have been better to quote the Ramouni family on why they felt it was unnecessary to get a seeing-eye dog for their daughter. <\/span><\/p>\n In addition, I would have appreciated more background about their decision to get a horse. Did this have anything to do with their daughter\u2019s love for horses? After all, using horses as guides is kind of rare. We are told that \u201cThere are only a handful of the miniature animals trained as guides for the blind in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n \n<\/p>![\"Mona](\"https:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20090409\/capt.53eff97fffa74785bb7fe9db02d8683a.horse_blind_muslim_mico102.jpg?x=213&y=260&xc=1&yc=1&wc=336&hc=410&q=85&sig=lxJ_POdS58uLI6O8r4yJow--\")
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